The Israel Palestine problem solving thread
Roadkill wrote:adam12 wrote:For the sensitive gaylords on this site
"Meaning:Lively, high-spirited. Gaylord is a masculine name of French origin. It stems from the word gaillard, which means lively and spirited."
If I wanted to homophobically slur the sensitive psychopath I would have chosen a homophobic slur.
You boys need to expand your vocabularies, and @Roadkill are you really sure you want to play Goose to this half wit Maverick?
And the human shields have a message for you @Indo
https://twitter.com/missfalsteenia/status/1741526424056447065When not making propaganda videos, if you asked those kids what do they think of Jews? They would say death to Jews and every Jew should be exterminated.
The children of Gaza are indoctrinated with hate from their parents and their hijacked religion.
The gaza population is a corrupted.
No other Muslim nation wants them because they know trouble and hate would follow.
New year......same Dill
burleigh wrote:Roadkill wrote:adam12 wrote:For the sensitive gaylords on this site
"Meaning:Lively, high-spirited. Gaylord is a masculine name of French origin. It stems from the word gaillard, which means lively and spirited."
If I wanted to homophobically slur the sensitive psychopath I would have chosen a homophobic slur.
You boys need to expand your vocabularies, and @Roadkill are you really sure you want to play Goose to this half wit Maverick?
And the human shields have a message for you @Indo
https://twitter.com/missfalsteenia/status/1741526424056447065When not making propaganda videos, if you asked those kids what do they think of Jews? They would say death to Jews and every Jew should be exterminated.
The children of Gaza are indoctrinated with hate from their parents and their hijacked religion.
The gaza population is a corrupted.
No other Muslim nation wants them because they know trouble and hate would follow.New year......same Dill
burls, have I said anything here that isn’t true?
@Roady
Yeah Roady, so butthurt.
Didn't even read that but anyway.
I'm 62, I made so much money I retired when I was 35.
I'm so butthurt, been butthurt for decades.
Anyway back to the topic at hand and the activities of @Indo's "respected army", the IDF...
An Israeli soldier complains there were no Palestinian babies left for him to kill - only a 12 year-old girl. This is beyond comprehension. The ICC must investigate. Over 9,000 Palestinian children have already been killed in Gaza. #Gaza_Genocide pic.twitter.com/7qxn7TOR78
— Laith Arafeh 🇵🇸 (@ArafehLaith) December 28, 2023
Israeli soldiers assault a worker at a gas station south of Hebron in the West Bank. Their problem is not Hamas but all the Palestinians #Gaza_Genocide#CeasefireNOW
— Khaled (@KhaledGaaZaa) December 31, 2023
pic.twitter.com/eXFbAZCBnr
https://twitter.com/Iam_MKharaud/status/1741215002177200516
🇮🇱 Israeli soldier boasts online about murdering 2 Palestinian children earlier in the day!
— Majid Freeman (@Majstar7) December 30, 2023
THIS is what the west is supporting. You’re complicit in #Gaza_Genocide 🇵🇸 pic.twitter.com/0NofTIKVnX
That's about three minutes search on twitter, there's thousands of videos like these.
The IDF came from terrorists, they have behaved like terrorists for 75 years.
They are no better than Hamas or any other terrorist group in the ME.
To call them a "respected army" shows what a naive warmongering dunce you are @Indo.
adam12 wrote:@Roady
Yeah Roady, so butthurt.
Didn't even read that but anyway.
I'm 62, I made so much money I retired when I was 35.
I'm so butthurt, been butthurt for decades.
Anyway back to the topic at hand and the activities of @Indo's "respected army", the IDF...
https://twitter.com/ArafehLaith/status/1740465906697089328
https://twitter.com/khaledkraizim/status/1741513498264269232
https://twitter.com/Iam_MKharaud/status/1741215002177200516
https://twitter.com/Majstar7/status/1741113409666478273That's about three minutes search on twitter, there's thousands of videos like these.
The IDF came from terrorists, they have behaved like terrorists for 75 years.
They are no better than Hamas or any other terrorist group in the ME.
To call them a "respected army" shows what a naive warmongering dunce you are @Indo.
Not surprised twitter is your go to source for information. 99% is fake bs. But hey, if it works for you.
The IDF have prosecuted their own soldiers for doing wrong. Quite a few have been held to account for their actions.
Hamas on the other hand encourages war crimes. Sexual assault as a weapon of war, using children for military means. The list is far longer than any wrongs the IDF has done.
There seems to be two equal sides battling it out .
Both scouting the world for support and ammunition .
Looking for Exocets or even shoes to throw at the enemy , every day .
No side giving an inch and unwilling to negotiate .
That is this thread , not Russia and Ukraine .
Hamas and Israel is not an even fight .
Israel took the risk and concentrated nearly everything on Gaza .
With forces from the North and West they have probably surprised Hamas with the speed of their Attack !
Three times quicker than most expected .
Its a new year
Whatever the reasons for Hamas starting this war ( rightful and dignified ) , surely THEY can’t let it finish with a slaughter of their Palestinian families .
If they do , they won’t be remembered as Spartans or a Saladin !!!
I am going to Pop Down from this thread , for a while , I really hope .
Roadkill wrote:The IDF have prosecuted their own soldiers for doing wrong. Quite a few have been held to account for their actions.
Hamas on the other hand encourages war crimes. Sexual assault as a weapon of war, using children for military means. The list is far longer than any wrongs the IDF has done.
Oh Roady,
you really do want to play Goose for that imbecile Maverick @Indo don't you?
OK mate, it's all fake news, those videos are obviously fake aren't they?
And they really do punish their soldiers that commit war crimes don't they?
The IDF is kinda justa real life International Rescue, without "Brains" of course.
There's some fairies at the bottom of my garden that would like a word with you, but be careful, they might call you a 'gaylord' too.
Roadkill wrote:The IDF have prosecuted their own soldiers for doing wrong. Quite a few have been held to account for their actions.
Hamas on the other hand encourages war crimes. Sexual assault as a weapon of war, using children for military means. The list is far longer than any wrongs the IDF has done.
Adam knows that, he knows there is no comparison between the two, it's absolutely absurd to even try to claim there is.
BTW. Notice how people like Adam who claim not to support Hamas, spend all their energy on dissing the IDF and Israel and trying to create this idea of the IDF being these bad guys or no different to Hamas, but notice how they never criticise Hamas or Palestine/Gaza.
Its just like how they are always calling for Israel to end the war, but not once have you we ever heard them say, Hamas need to hand over the hostages and surrender so the war can end.
Mum taught me not to believe everything I see on TV.
Yes it’s true ,people make stuff up and now they are getting even better at it.
Nobody wants war especially the Israelis but what do you do when they keep coming after you. People in Gaza made these guys leaders and now they are paying the price. They wanted Israel wiped off the map and now it’s happening right back at them….sad though.
Sam Harris podcast from 2014 during last Gaza Israel war:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/77kgXgyYJamUuuXkN2G3zY?si=LUCYfwXJQZOkD...
EPISODE 2
Why Don't I Criticize Israel?
JULY 27, 2014
AUDIO TRANSCRIPT [Note: This is a verbatim transcript of a spoken podcast. However, I have added notes like this one to clarify controversial points.—SH]
I was going to do a podcast on a series of questions, but I got so many questions on the same topic that I think I’m just going to do a single response here, and we’ll do an #AskMeAnything podcast next time.
The question I’ve now received in many forms goes something like this: Why is it that you never criticize Israel? Why is it that you never criticize Judaism? Why is it that you always take the side of the Israelis over that of the Palestinians?
Now, this is an incredibly boring and depressing question for a variety of reasons. The first, is that I have criticized both Israel and Judaism. What seems to have upset many people is that I’ve kept some sense of proportion. There are something like 15 million Jews on earth at this moment; there are a hundred times as many Muslims. I’ve debated rabbis who, when I have assumed that they believe in a God that can hear our prayers, they stop me mid-sentence and say, “Why would you think that I believe in a God who can hear prayers?” So there are rabbis—conservative rabbis—who believe in a God so elastic as to exclude every concrete claim about Him—and therefore, nearly every concrete demand upon human behavior. And there are millions of Jews, literally millions among the few million who exist, for whom Judaism is very important, and yet they are atheists. They don’t believe in God at all. This is actually a position you can hold in Judaism, but it’s a total non sequitur in Islam or Christianity.
So, when we’re talking about the consequences of irrational beliefs based on scripture, the Jews are the least of the least offenders. But I have said many critical things about Judaism. Let me remind you that parts of Hebrew Bible—books like Leviticus and Exodus and Deuteronomy—are the most repellent, the most sickeningly unethical documents to be found in any religion. They’re worse than the Koran. They’re worse than any part of the New Testament. But the truth is, most Jews recognize this and don’t take these texts seriously. It’s simply a fact that most Jews and most Israelis are not guided by scripture—and that’s a very good thing.
Of course, there are some who are. There are religious extremists among Jews. Now, I consider these people to be truly dangerous, and their religious beliefs are as divisive and as unwarranted as the beliefs of devout Muslims. But there are far fewer such people.
For those of you who worry that I never say anything critical about Israel: My position on Israel is somewhat paradoxical. There are questions about which I’m genuinely undecided. And there’s something in my position, I think, to offend everyone. So, acknowledging how reckless it is to say anything on this topic, I’m nevertheless going to think out loud about it for a few minutes.
I don’t think Israel should exist as a Jewish state. I think it is obscene, irrational and unjustifiable to have a state organized around a religion. So I don’t celebrate the idea that there’s a Jewish homeland in the Middle East. I certainly don’t support any Jewish claims to real estate based on the Bible. [Note: Read this paragraph again.]
Though I just said that I don’t think Israel should exist as a Jewish state, the justification for such a state is rather easy to find. We need look no further than the fact that the rest of the world has shown itself eager to murder the Jews at almost every opportunity. So, if there were going to be a state organized around protecting members of a single religion, it certainly should be a Jewish state. Now, friends of Israel might consider this a rather tepid defense, but it’s the strongest one I’ve got. I think the idea of a religious state is ultimately untenable. [Note: It is worth observing, however, that Israel isn’t “Jewish” in the sense that Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are “Muslim.” As my friend Jerry Coyne points out, Israel is actually less religious than the U.S., and it guarantees freedom of religion to its citizens. Israel is not a theocracy, and one could easily argue that its Jewish identity is more cultural than religious. However, if we ask why the Jews wouldn’t move to British Columbia if offered a home there, we can see the role that religion still plays in their thinking.]
Needless to say, in defending its territory as a Jewish state, the Israeli government and Israelis themselves have had to do terrible things. They have, as they are now, fought wars against the Palestinians that have caused massive losses of innocent life. More civilians have been killed in Gaza in the last few weeks than militants. That’s not a surprise because Gaza is one of the most densely populated places on Earth. Occupying it, fighting wars in it, is guaranteed to get women and children and other noncombatants killed. And there’s probably little question over the course of fighting multiple wars that the Israelis have done things that amount to war crimes. They have been brutalized by this process—that is, made brutal by it. But that is largely the due to the character of their enemies. [Note: I was not giving Israel a pass to commit war crimes. I was making a point about the realities of living under the continuous threat of terrorism and of fighting multiple wars in a confined space.]
Whatever terrible things the Israelis have done, it is also true to say that they have used more restraint in their fighting against the Palestinians than we—the Americans, or Western Europeans—have used in any of our wars. They have endured more worldwide public scrutiny than any other society has ever had to while defending itself against aggressors. The Israelis simply are held to a different standard. And the condemnation leveled at them by the rest of the world is completely out of proportion to what they have actually done. [Note: I was not saying that because they are more careful than we have been at our most careless, the Israelis are above criticism. War crimes are war crimes.]
It is clear that Israel is losing the PR war and has been for years now. One of the most galling things for outside observers about the current war in Gaza is the disproportionate loss of life on the Palestinian side. This doesn’t make a lot of moral sense. Israel built bomb shelters to protect its citizens. The Palestinians built tunnels through which they could carry out terror attacks and kidnap Israelis. Should Israel be blamed for successfully protecting its population in a defensive war? I don’t think so. [Note: I was not suggesting that the deaths of Palestinian noncombatants are anything less than tragic. But if retaliating against Hamas is bound to get innocents killed, and the Israelis manage to protect their own civilians in the meantime, the loss of innocent life on the Palestinian side is guaranteed to be disproportionate.]
But there is no way to look at the images coming out of Gaza—especially of infants and toddlers riddled by shrapnel—and think that this is anything other than a monstrous evil. Insofar as the Israelis are the agents of this evil, it seems impossible to support them. And there is no question that the Palestinians have suffered terribly for decades under the occupation. This is where most critics of Israel appear to be stuck. They see these images, and they blame Israel for killing and maiming babies. They see the occupation, and they blame Israel for making Gaza a prison camp. I would argue that this is a kind of moral illusion, borne of a failure to look at the actual causes of this conflict, as well as of a failure to understand the intentions of the people on either side of it. [Note: I was not saying that the horror of slain children is a moral illusion; nor was I minimizing the suffering of the Palestinians under the occupation. I was claiming that Israel is not primarily to blame for all this suffering.]
The truth is that there is an obvious, undeniable, and hugely consequential moral difference between Israel and her enemies. The Israelis are surrounded by people who have explicitly genocidal intentions towards them. The charter of Hamas is explicitly genocidal. It looks forward to a time, based on Koranic prophesy, when the earth itself will cry out for Jewish blood, where the trees and the stones will say “O Muslim, there’s a Jew hiding behind me. Come and kill him.” This is a political document. We are talking about a government that was voted into power by a majority of Palestinians. [Note: Yes, I know that not every Palestinian supports Hamas, but enough do to have brought them to power. Hamas is not a fringe group.]
The discourse in the Muslim world about Jews is utterly shocking. Not only is there Holocaust denial—there’s Holocaust denial that then asserts that we will do it for real if given the chance. The only thing more obnoxious than denying the Holocaust is to say that it should have happened; it didn’t happen, but if we get the chance, we will accomplish it. There are children’s shows in the Palestinian territories and elsewhere that teach five-year-olds about the glories of martyrdom and about the necessity of killing Jews.
And this gets to the heart of the moral difference between Israel and her enemies. And this is something I discussed in The End of Faith. To see this moral difference, you have to ask what each side would do if they had the power to do it.
What would the Jews do to the Palestinians if they could do anything they wanted? Well, we know the answer to that question, because they can do more or less anything they want. The Israeli army could kill everyone in Gaza tomorrow. So what does that mean? Well, it means that, when they drop a bomb on a beach and kill four Palestinian children, as happened last week, this is almost certainly an accident. They’re not targeting children. They could target as many children as they want. Every time a Palestinian child dies, Israel edges ever closer to becoming an international pariah. So the Israelis take great pains not to kill children and other noncombatants. [Note: The word “so” in the previous sentence was regrettable and misleading. I didn’t mean to suggest that safeguarding its reputation abroad would be the only (or even primary) reason for Israel to avoid killing children. However, the point stands: Even if you want to attribute the basest motives to Israel, it is clearly in her self-interest not to kill Palestinian children.]
Now, is it possible that some Israeli soldiers go berserk under pressure and wind up shooting into crowds of rock-throwing children? Of course. You will always find some soldiers acting this way in the middle of a war. But we know that this isn’t the general intent of Israel. We know the Israelis do not want to kill non-combatants, because they could kill as many as they want, and they’re not doing it.
What do we know of the Palestinians? What would the Palestinians do to the Jews in Israel if the power imbalance were reversed? Well, they have told us what they would do. For some reason, Israel’s critics just don’t want to believe the worst about a group like Hamas, even when it declares the worst of itself. We’ve already had a Holocaust and several other genocides in the 20th century. People are capable of committing genocide. When they tell us they intend to commit genocide, we should listen. There is every reason to believe that the Palestinians would kill all the Jews in Israel if they could. Would every Palestinian support genocide? Of course not. But vast numbers of them—and of Muslims throughout the world—would. Needless to say, the Palestinians in general, not just Hamas, have a history of targeting innocent noncombatants in the most shocking ways possible. They’ve blown themselves up on buses and in restaurants. They’ve massacred teenagers. They’ve murdered Olympic athletes. They now shoot rockets indiscriminately into civilian areas. And again, the charter of their government in Gaza explicitly tells us that they want to annihilate the Jews—not just in Israel but everywhere. [Note: Again, I realize that not all Palestinians support Hamas. Nor am I discounting the degree to which the occupation, along with collateral damage suffered in war, has fueled Palestinian rage. But Palestinian terrorism (and Muslim anti-Semitism) is what has made peaceful coexistence thus far impossible.]
The truth is that everything you need to know about the moral imbalance between Israel and her enemies can be understood on the topic of human shields. Who uses human shields? Well, Hamas certainly does. They shoot their rockets from residential neighborhoods, from beside schools, and hospitals, and mosques. Muslims in other recent conflicts, in Iraq and elsewhere, have also used human shields. They have laid their rifles on the shoulders of their own children and shot from behind their bodies.
Consider the moral difference between using human shields and being deterred by them. That is the difference we’re talking about. The Israelis and other Western powers are deterred, however imperfectly, by the Muslim use of human shields in these conflicts, as we should be. It is morally abhorrent to kill noncombatants if you can avoid it. It’s certainly abhorrent to shoot through the bodies of children to get at your adversary. But take a moment to reflect on how contemptible this behavior is. And understand how cynical it is. The Muslims are acting on the assumption—the knowledge, in fact—that the infidels with whom they fight, the very people whom their religion does nothing but vilify, will be deterred by their use of Muslim human shields. They consider the Jews the spawn of apes and pigs—and yet they rely on the fact that they don’t want to kill Muslim noncombatants. [Note: The term “Muslims” in this paragraph means “Muslim combatants” of the sort that Western forces have encountered in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. The term “jihadists” would have been too narrow, but I was not suggesting that all Muslims support the use of human shields or are anti-Semitic, at war with the West, etc.]
Now imagine reversing the roles here. Imagine how fatuous—indeed comical it would be—for the Israelis to attempt to use human shields to deter the Palestinians. Some claim that they have already done this. There are reports that Israeli soldiers have occasionally put Palestinian civilians in front of them as they’ve advanced into dangerous areas. That’s not the use of human shields we’re talking about. It’s egregious behavior. No doubt it constitutes a war crime. But Imagine the Israelis holding up their own women and children as human shields. Of course, that would be ridiculous. The Palestinians are trying to kill everyone. Killing women and children is part of the plan. Reversing the roles here produces a grotesque Monty Python skit.
If you’re going to talk about the conflict in the Middle East, you have to acknowledge this difference. I don’t think there’s any ethical disparity to be found anywhere that is more shocking or consequential than this.
And the truth is, this isn’t even the worst that jihadists do. Hamas is practically a moderate organization, compared to other jihadist groups. There are Muslims who have blown themselves up in crowds of children—again, Muslim children—just to get at the American soldiers who were handing out candy to them. They have committed suicide bombings, only to send another bomber to the hospital to await the casualities—where they then blow up all the injured along with the doctors and nurses trying to save their lives.
Every day that you could read about an Israeli rocket gone astray or Israeli soldiers beating up an innocent teenager, you could have read about ISIS in Iraq crucifying people on the side of the road, Christians and Muslims. Where is the outrage in the Muslim world and on the Left over these crimes? Where are the demonstrations, 10,000 or 100,000 deep, in the capitals of Europe against ISIS? If Israel kills a dozen Palestinians by accident, the entire Muslim world is inflamed. God forbid you burn a Koran, or write a novel vaguely critical of the faith. And yet Muslims can destroy their own societies—and seek to destroy the West—and you don’t hear a peep. [Note: Of course, I’m aware that many Muslims condemn groups like ISIS. My point is that we don’t see massive protests against global jihadism—even though it targets Muslims more than anyone else—and we do see such protests over things like the Danish cartoons.]
So, it seems to me, that you have to side with Israel here. You have one side which if it really could accomplish its aims would simply live peacefully with its neighbors, and you have another side which is seeking to implement a seventh century theocracy in the Holy Land. There’s no peace to be found between those incompatible ideas. That doesn’t mean you can’t condemn specific actions on the part of the Israelis. And, of course, acknowledging the moral disparity between Israel and her enemies doesn’t give us any solution to the problem of Israel’s existence in the Middle East. [Note: I was not suggesting that Israel’s actions are above criticism or that their recent incursion into Gaza was necessarily justified. Nor was I saying that the status quo, wherein the Palestinians remain stateless, should be maintained. And I certainly wasn’t expressing support for the building of settlements on contested land (as I made clear below). By “siding with Israel,” I am simply recognizing that they are not the primary aggressors in this conflict. They are, rather, responding to aggression—and at a terrible cost.]
Again, granted, there’s some percentage of Jews who are animated by their own religious hysteria and their own prophesies. Some are awaiting the Messiah on contested land. Yes, these people are willing to sacrifice the blood of their own children for the glory of God. But, for the most part, they are not representative of the current state of Judaism or the actions of the Israeli government. And it is how Israel deals with these people—their own religious lunatics—that will determine whether they can truly hold the moral high ground. And Israel can do a lot more than it has to disempower them. It can cease to subsidize the delusions of the Ultra-Orthodox, and it can stop building settlements on contested land. [Note: Read that again. And, yes, I understand that not all settlers are Ultra-Orthodox.]
These incompatible religious attachments to this land have made it impossible for Muslims and Jews to negotiate like rational human beings, and they have made it impossible for them to live in peace. But the onus is still more on the side of the Muslims here. Even on their worst day, the Israelis act with greater care and compassion and self-criticism than Muslim combatants have anywhere, ever.
And again, you have to ask yourself, what do these groups want? What would they accomplish if they could accomplish anything? What would the Israelis do if they could do what they want? They would live in peace with their neighbors, if they had neighbors who would live in peace with them. They would simply continue to build out their high tech sector and thrive. [Note: Some might argue that they would do more than this—e.g. steal more Palestinian land. But apart from the influence of Jewish extremism (which I condemn), Israel’s continued appropriation of land has more than a little to do with her security concerns. Absent Palestinian terrorism and Muslim anti-Semitism, we could be talking about a “one-state solution,” and the settlements would be moot.]
What do groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda and even Hamas want? They want to impose their religious views on the rest of humanity. They want to stifle every freedom that decent, educated, secular people care about. This is not a trivial difference. And yet judging from the level of condemnation that Israel now receives, you would think the difference ran the other way.
This kind of confusion puts all of us in danger. This is the great story of our time. For the rest of our lives, and the lives of our children, we are going to be confronted by people who don’t want to live peacefully in a secular, pluralistic world, because they are desperate to get to Paradise, and they are willing to destroy the very possibility of human happiness along the way. The truth is, we are all living in Israel. It’s just that some of us haven’t realized it yet.
Patrick wrote:Sam Harris podcast from 2014 during last Gaza Israel war:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/77kgXgyYJamUuuXkN2G3zY?si=LUCYfwXJQZOkD...EPISODE 2
Why Don't I Criticize Israel?
JULY 27, 2014
AUDIO TRANSCRIPT [Note: This is a verbatim transcript of a spoken podcast. However, I have added notes like this one to clarify controversial points.—SH]I was going to do a podcast on a series of questions, but I got so many questions on the same topic that I think I’m just going to do a single response here, and we’ll do an #AskMeAnything podcast next time.
The question I’ve now received in many forms goes something like this: Why is it that you never criticize Israel? Why is it that you never criticize Judaism? Why is it that you always take the side of the Israelis over that of the Palestinians?
Now, this is an incredibly boring and depressing question for a variety of reasons. The first, is that I have criticized both Israel and Judaism. What seems to have upset many people is that I’ve kept some sense of proportion. There are something like 15 million Jews on earth at this moment; there are a hundred times as many Muslims. I’ve debated rabbis who, when I have assumed that they believe in a God that can hear our prayers, they stop me mid-sentence and say, “Why would you think that I believe in a God who can hear prayers?” So there are rabbis—conservative rabbis—who believe in a God so elastic as to exclude every concrete claim about Him—and therefore, nearly every concrete demand upon human behavior. And there are millions of Jews, literally millions among the few million who exist, for whom Judaism is very important, and yet they are atheists. They don’t believe in God at all. This is actually a position you can hold in Judaism, but it’s a total non sequitur in Islam or Christianity.
So, when we’re talking about the consequences of irrational beliefs based on scripture, the Jews are the least of the least offenders. But I have said many critical things about Judaism. Let me remind you that parts of Hebrew Bible—books like Leviticus and Exodus and Deuteronomy—are the most repellent, the most sickeningly unethical documents to be found in any religion. They’re worse than the Koran. They’re worse than any part of the New Testament. But the truth is, most Jews recognize this and don’t take these texts seriously. It’s simply a fact that most Jews and most Israelis are not guided by scripture—and that’s a very good thing.
Of course, there are some who are. There are religious extremists among Jews. Now, I consider these people to be truly dangerous, and their religious beliefs are as divisive and as unwarranted as the beliefs of devout Muslims. But there are far fewer such people.
For those of you who worry that I never say anything critical about Israel: My position on Israel is somewhat paradoxical. There are questions about which I’m genuinely undecided. And there’s something in my position, I think, to offend everyone. So, acknowledging how reckless it is to say anything on this topic, I’m nevertheless going to think out loud about it for a few minutes.
I don’t think Israel should exist as a Jewish state. I think it is obscene, irrational and unjustifiable to have a state organized around a religion. So I don’t celebrate the idea that there’s a Jewish homeland in the Middle East. I certainly don’t support any Jewish claims to real estate based on the Bible. [Note: Read this paragraph again.]
Though I just said that I don’t think Israel should exist as a Jewish state, the justification for such a state is rather easy to find. We need look no further than the fact that the rest of the world has shown itself eager to murder the Jews at almost every opportunity. So, if there were going to be a state organized around protecting members of a single religion, it certainly should be a Jewish state. Now, friends of Israel might consider this a rather tepid defense, but it’s the strongest one I’ve got. I think the idea of a religious state is ultimately untenable. [Note: It is worth observing, however, that Israel isn’t “Jewish” in the sense that Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are “Muslim.” As my friend Jerry Coyne points out, Israel is actually less religious than the U.S., and it guarantees freedom of religion to its citizens. Israel is not a theocracy, and one could easily argue that its Jewish identity is more cultural than religious. However, if we ask why the Jews wouldn’t move to British Columbia if offered a home there, we can see the role that religion still plays in their thinking.]
Needless to say, in defending its territory as a Jewish state, the Israeli government and Israelis themselves have had to do terrible things. They have, as they are now, fought wars against the Palestinians that have caused massive losses of innocent life. More civilians have been killed in Gaza in the last few weeks than militants. That’s not a surprise because Gaza is one of the most densely populated places on Earth. Occupying it, fighting wars in it, is guaranteed to get women and children and other noncombatants killed. And there’s probably little question over the course of fighting multiple wars that the Israelis have done things that amount to war crimes. They have been brutalized by this process—that is, made brutal by it. But that is largely the due to the character of their enemies. [Note: I was not giving Israel a pass to commit war crimes. I was making a point about the realities of living under the continuous threat of terrorism and of fighting multiple wars in a confined space.]
Whatever terrible things the Israelis have done, it is also true to say that they have used more restraint in their fighting against the Palestinians than we—the Americans, or Western Europeans—have used in any of our wars. They have endured more worldwide public scrutiny than any other society has ever had to while defending itself against aggressors. The Israelis simply are held to a different standard. And the condemnation leveled at them by the rest of the world is completely out of proportion to what they have actually done. [Note: I was not saying that because they are more careful than we have been at our most careless, the Israelis are above criticism. War crimes are war crimes.]
It is clear that Israel is losing the PR war and has been for years now. One of the most galling things for outside observers about the current war in Gaza is the disproportionate loss of life on the Palestinian side. This doesn’t make a lot of moral sense. Israel built bomb shelters to protect its citizens. The Palestinians built tunnels through which they could carry out terror attacks and kidnap Israelis. Should Israel be blamed for successfully protecting its population in a defensive war? I don’t think so. [Note: I was not suggesting that the deaths of Palestinian noncombatants are anything less than tragic. But if retaliating against Hamas is bound to get innocents killed, and the Israelis manage to protect their own civilians in the meantime, the loss of innocent life on the Palestinian side is guaranteed to be disproportionate.]
But there is no way to look at the images coming out of Gaza—especially of infants and toddlers riddled by shrapnel—and think that this is anything other than a monstrous evil. Insofar as the Israelis are the agents of this evil, it seems impossible to support them. And there is no question that the Palestinians have suffered terribly for decades under the occupation. This is where most critics of Israel appear to be stuck. They see these images, and they blame Israel for killing and maiming babies. They see the occupation, and they blame Israel for making Gaza a prison camp. I would argue that this is a kind of moral illusion, borne of a failure to look at the actual causes of this conflict, as well as of a failure to understand the intentions of the people on either side of it. [Note: I was not saying that the horror of slain children is a moral illusion; nor was I minimizing the suffering of the Palestinians under the occupation. I was claiming that Israel is not primarily to blame for all this suffering.]
The truth is that there is an obvious, undeniable, and hugely consequential moral difference between Israel and her enemies. The Israelis are surrounded by people who have explicitly genocidal intentions towards them. The charter of Hamas is explicitly genocidal. It looks forward to a time, based on Koranic prophesy, when the earth itself will cry out for Jewish blood, where the trees and the stones will say “O Muslim, there’s a Jew hiding behind me. Come and kill him.” This is a political document. We are talking about a government that was voted into power by a majority of Palestinians. [Note: Yes, I know that not every Palestinian supports Hamas, but enough do to have brought them to power. Hamas is not a fringe group.]
The discourse in the Muslim world about Jews is utterly shocking. Not only is there Holocaust denial—there’s Holocaust denial that then asserts that we will do it for real if given the chance. The only thing more obnoxious than denying the Holocaust is to say that it should have happened; it didn’t happen, but if we get the chance, we will accomplish it. There are children’s shows in the Palestinian territories and elsewhere that teach five-year-olds about the glories of martyrdom and about the necessity of killing Jews.
And this gets to the heart of the moral difference between Israel and her enemies. And this is something I discussed in The End of Faith. To see this moral difference, you have to ask what each side would do if they had the power to do it.
What would the Jews do to the Palestinians if they could do anything they wanted? Well, we know the answer to that question, because they can do more or less anything they want. The Israeli army could kill everyone in Gaza tomorrow. So what does that mean? Well, it means that, when they drop a bomb on a beach and kill four Palestinian children, as happened last week, this is almost certainly an accident. They’re not targeting children. They could target as many children as they want. Every time a Palestinian child dies, Israel edges ever closer to becoming an international pariah. So the Israelis take great pains not to kill children and other noncombatants. [Note: The word “so” in the previous sentence was regrettable and misleading. I didn’t mean to suggest that safeguarding its reputation abroad would be the only (or even primary) reason for Israel to avoid killing children. However, the point stands: Even if you want to attribute the basest motives to Israel, it is clearly in her self-interest not to kill Palestinian children.]
Now, is it possible that some Israeli soldiers go berserk under pressure and wind up shooting into crowds of rock-throwing children? Of course. You will always find some soldiers acting this way in the middle of a war. But we know that this isn’t the general intent of Israel. We know the Israelis do not want to kill non-combatants, because they could kill as many as they want, and they’re not doing it.
What do we know of the Palestinians? What would the Palestinians do to the Jews in Israel if the power imbalance were reversed? Well, they have told us what they would do. For some reason, Israel’s critics just don’t want to believe the worst about a group like Hamas, even when it declares the worst of itself. We’ve already had a Holocaust and several other genocides in the 20th century. People are capable of committing genocide. When they tell us they intend to commit genocide, we should listen. There is every reason to believe that the Palestinians would kill all the Jews in Israel if they could. Would every Palestinian support genocide? Of course not. But vast numbers of them—and of Muslims throughout the world—would. Needless to say, the Palestinians in general, not just Hamas, have a history of targeting innocent noncombatants in the most shocking ways possible. They’ve blown themselves up on buses and in restaurants. They’ve massacred teenagers. They’ve murdered Olympic athletes. They now shoot rockets indiscriminately into civilian areas. And again, the charter of their government in Gaza explicitly tells us that they want to annihilate the Jews—not just in Israel but everywhere. [Note: Again, I realize that not all Palestinians support Hamas. Nor am I discounting the degree to which the occupation, along with collateral damage suffered in war, has fueled Palestinian rage. But Palestinian terrorism (and Muslim anti-Semitism) is what has made peaceful coexistence thus far impossible.]
The truth is that everything you need to know about the moral imbalance between Israel and her enemies can be understood on the topic of human shields. Who uses human shields? Well, Hamas certainly does. They shoot their rockets from residential neighborhoods, from beside schools, and hospitals, and mosques. Muslims in other recent conflicts, in Iraq and elsewhere, have also used human shields. They have laid their rifles on the shoulders of their own children and shot from behind their bodies.
Consider the moral difference between using human shields and being deterred by them. That is the difference we’re talking about. The Israelis and other Western powers are deterred, however imperfectly, by the Muslim use of human shields in these conflicts, as we should be. It is morally abhorrent to kill noncombatants if you can avoid it. It’s certainly abhorrent to shoot through the bodies of children to get at your adversary. But take a moment to reflect on how contemptible this behavior is. And understand how cynical it is. The Muslims are acting on the assumption—the knowledge, in fact—that the infidels with whom they fight, the very people whom their religion does nothing but vilify, will be deterred by their use of Muslim human shields. They consider the Jews the spawn of apes and pigs—and yet they rely on the fact that they don’t want to kill Muslim noncombatants. [Note: The term “Muslims” in this paragraph means “Muslim combatants” of the sort that Western forces have encountered in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. The term “jihadists” would have been too narrow, but I was not suggesting that all Muslims support the use of human shields or are anti-Semitic, at war with the West, etc.]
Now imagine reversing the roles here. Imagine how fatuous—indeed comical it would be—for the Israelis to attempt to use human shields to deter the Palestinians. Some claim that they have already done this. There are reports that Israeli soldiers have occasionally put Palestinian civilians in front of them as they’ve advanced into dangerous areas. That’s not the use of human shields we’re talking about. It’s egregious behavior. No doubt it constitutes a war crime. But Imagine the Israelis holding up their own women and children as human shields. Of course, that would be ridiculous. The Palestinians are trying to kill everyone. Killing women and children is part of the plan. Reversing the roles here produces a grotesque Monty Python skit.
If you’re going to talk about the conflict in the Middle East, you have to acknowledge this difference. I don’t think there’s any ethical disparity to be found anywhere that is more shocking or consequential than this.
And the truth is, this isn’t even the worst that jihadists do. Hamas is practically a moderate organization, compared to other jihadist groups. There are Muslims who have blown themselves up in crowds of children—again, Muslim children—just to get at the American soldiers who were handing out candy to them. They have committed suicide bombings, only to send another bomber to the hospital to await the casualities—where they then blow up all the injured along with the doctors and nurses trying to save their lives.
Every day that you could read about an Israeli rocket gone astray or Israeli soldiers beating up an innocent teenager, you could have read about ISIS in Iraq crucifying people on the side of the road, Christians and Muslims. Where is the outrage in the Muslim world and on the Left over these crimes? Where are the demonstrations, 10,000 or 100,000 deep, in the capitals of Europe against ISIS? If Israel kills a dozen Palestinians by accident, the entire Muslim world is inflamed. God forbid you burn a Koran, or write a novel vaguely critical of the faith. And yet Muslims can destroy their own societies—and seek to destroy the West—and you don’t hear a peep. [Note: Of course, I’m aware that many Muslims condemn groups like ISIS. My point is that we don’t see massive protests against global jihadism—even though it targets Muslims more than anyone else—and we do see such protests over things like the Danish cartoons.]
So, it seems to me, that you have to side with Israel here. You have one side which if it really could accomplish its aims would simply live peacefully with its neighbors, and you have another side which is seeking to implement a seventh century theocracy in the Holy Land. There’s no peace to be found between those incompatible ideas. That doesn’t mean you can’t condemn specific actions on the part of the Israelis. And, of course, acknowledging the moral disparity between Israel and her enemies doesn’t give us any solution to the problem of Israel’s existence in the Middle East. [Note: I was not suggesting that Israel’s actions are above criticism or that their recent incursion into Gaza was necessarily justified. Nor was I saying that the status quo, wherein the Palestinians remain stateless, should be maintained. And I certainly wasn’t expressing support for the building of settlements on contested land (as I made clear below). By “siding with Israel,” I am simply recognizing that they are not the primary aggressors in this conflict. They are, rather, responding to aggression—and at a terrible cost.]
Again, granted, there’s some percentage of Jews who are animated by their own religious hysteria and their own prophesies. Some are awaiting the Messiah on contested land. Yes, these people are willing to sacrifice the blood of their own children for the glory of God. But, for the most part, they are not representative of the current state of Judaism or the actions of the Israeli government. And it is how Israel deals with these people—their own religious lunatics—that will determine whether they can truly hold the moral high ground. And Israel can do a lot more than it has to disempower them. It can cease to subsidize the delusions of the Ultra-Orthodox, and it can stop building settlements on contested land. [Note: Read that again. And, yes, I understand that not all settlers are Ultra-Orthodox.]
These incompatible religious attachments to this land have made it impossible for Muslims and Jews to negotiate like rational human beings, and they have made it impossible for them to live in peace. But the onus is still more on the side of the Muslims here. Even on their worst day, the Israelis act with greater care and compassion and self-criticism than Muslim combatants have anywhere, ever.
And again, you have to ask yourself, what do these groups want? What would they accomplish if they could accomplish anything? What would the Israelis do if they could do what they want? They would live in peace with their neighbors, if they had neighbors who would live in peace with them. They would simply continue to build out their high tech sector and thrive. [Note: Some might argue that they would do more than this—e.g. steal more Palestinian land. But apart from the influence of Jewish extremism (which I condemn), Israel’s continued appropriation of land has more than a little to do with her security concerns. Absent Palestinian terrorism and Muslim anti-Semitism, we could be talking about a “one-state solution,” and the settlements would be moot.]
What do groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda and even Hamas want? They want to impose their religious views on the rest of humanity. They want to stifle every freedom that decent, educated, secular people care about. This is not a trivial difference. And yet judging from the level of condemnation that Israel now receives, you would think the difference ran the other way.
This kind of confusion puts all of us in danger. This is the great story of our time. For the rest of our lives, and the lives of our children, we are going to be confronted by people who don’t want to live peacefully in a secular, pluralistic world, because they are desperate to get to Paradise, and they are willing to destroy the very possibility of human happiness along the way. The truth is, we are all living in Israel. It’s just that some of us haven’t realized it yet.
As valid now as it was in 2014.
And the SN free Palestine defenders will ignore all that was raised in the podcast and offer up..but but but buts and nothing else.
indo-dreaming wrote:Roadkill wrote:The IDF have prosecuted their own soldiers for doing wrong. Quite a few have been held to account for their actions.
Hamas on the other hand encourages war crimes. Sexual assault as a weapon of war, using children for military means. The list is far longer than any wrongs the IDF has done.
Adam knows that, he knows there is no comparison between the two, it's absolutely absurd to even try to claim there is.
BTW. Notice how people like Adam who claim not to support Hamas, spend all their energy on dissing the IDF and Israel and trying to create this idea of the IDF being these bad guys or no different to Hamas, but notice how they never criticise Hamas or Palestine/Gaza.
Its just like how they are always calling for Israel to end the war, but not once have you we ever heard them say, Hamas need to hand over the hostages and surrender so the war can end.
Look Top Dumb, you and your little side kick Goose a.k.a. @Roadkill have a bad habit of telling people what they are actually saying or what they really know, putting words in people's mouths they didn't say.
I have consistently criticised the actions of Hamas.
Don't fucking tell me what I think or know or said that I didn't.
Find one post where I have praised or supported Hamas.
You are such a black and white one sided simpleton that you interpret me being critical of Israel and the IDF as supporting Hamas or terrorism. I have said numerous times that I do not.
You wonder why I get abusive with you?
Posts like that.
So fuck off.
@Patrick, I've read that whole thing.
Sam Harris is full of shit.
Read this for a critique of his work and that podcast...
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/11/sam-harriss-fairy-tale-account-o...
Patrick found a Missile dated July 27 , 2014 .
It was a Nuke imho
So disturbing to read that human shields were used just 10 years ago .
I now really fear for the hostages and people of Gaza .
I believe in a Secular society.
Our soldiers have fought for that a few times already .
And won !
We will do it again , if needed .
In this fight , Pop stands , shoulder to shoulder , with Israel ,
Edit
From the fn sideline like a fn spectator ,
adam12 wrote:indo-dreaming wrote:Roadkill wrote:The IDF have prosecuted their own soldiers for doing wrong. Quite a few have been held to account for their actions.
Hamas on the other hand encourages war crimes. Sexual assault as a weapon of war, using children for military means. The list is far longer than any wrongs the IDF has done.
Adam knows that, he knows there is no comparison between the two, it's absolutely absurd to even try to claim there is.
BTW. Notice how people like Adam who claim not to support Hamas, spend all their energy on dissing the IDF and Israel and trying to create this idea of the IDF being these bad guys or no different to Hamas, but notice how they never criticise Hamas or Palestine/Gaza.
Its just like how they are always calling for Israel to end the war, but not once have you we ever heard them say, Hamas need to hand over the hostages and surrender so the war can end.
Look Top Dumb, you and your little side kick Goose a.k.a. @Roadkill have a bad habit of telling people what they are actually saying or what they really know, putting words in people's mouths they didn't say.
I have consistently criticised the actions of Hamas.
Don't fucking tell me what I think or know or said that I didn't.
Find one post where I have praised or supported Hamas.
You are such a black and white one sided simpleton that you interpret me being critical of Israel and the IDF as supporting Hamas or terrorism. I have said numerous times that I do not.
You wonder why I get abusive with you?
Posts like that.
So fuck off.@Patrick, I've read that whole thing.
Sam Harris is full of shit.
Read this for a critique of his work and that podcast...
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/11/sam-harriss-fairy-tale-account-o...
You get abusive because you lack ability and are easily triggered. It’s snowflake stuff not being able to remain calm.
Ding Ding Ding Ding!!!
Roadkills first use of 'snowflake' for 2024.
Huzza!!!!
Love yer work Adam12.
"A circular argument, also known as circular reasoning, is an incorrect argument that tries to prove itself using its conclusion as evidence, such as “our boss is the best person for the job because they were promoted to boss.”
Fact and could be applied to the arguments presented above....which is why debate and reasoning with that ilk is a pointless exercise and one not worth ones time and energy.
For example...
Israel are justified in defending themselves....
another circular argument....
Roadkill wrote:adam12 wrote:For the sensitive gaylords on this site
"Meaning:Lively, high-spirited. Gaylord is a masculine name of French origin. It stems from the word gaillard, which means lively and spirited."
If I wanted to homophobically slur the sensitive psychopath I would have chosen a homophobic slur.
You boys need to expand your vocabularies, and @Roadkill are you really sure you want to play Goose to this half wit Maverick?
And the human shields have a message for you @Indo
https://twitter.com/missfalsteenia/status/1741526424056447065When not making propaganda videos, if you asked those kids what do they think of Jews? They would say death to Jews and every Jew should be exterminated.
The children of Gaza are indoctrinated with hate from their parents and their hijacked religion.
The gaza population is a corrupted.
No other Muslim nation wants them because they know trouble and hate would follow.
So this is fact? Evidence based on the Palestinian population? Or is this Roady heresay?
Since you're crying out for evidence and facts all the time....wanna put forward a solid case to back up this comment?
I'd like to see it, because to me, the Palestinian people look like, well,....just...you know...people. Kinda like you and me.
“Love yer work Adam12.“ no surprise there…like minded people tend to stick together.
southernraw wrote:For example...
Israel are justified in defending themselves....
another circular argument....
SR, Israel doesn’t have a right to defend themselves?
southernraw wrote:Roadkill wrote:adam12 wrote:For the sensitive gaylords on this site
"Meaning:Lively, high-spirited. Gaylord is a masculine name of French origin. It stems from the word gaillard, which means lively and spirited."
If I wanted to homophobically slur the sensitive psychopath I would have chosen a homophobic slur.
You boys need to expand your vocabularies, and @Roadkill are you really sure you want to play Goose to this half wit Maverick?
And the human shields have a message for you @Indo
https://twitter.com/missfalsteenia/status/1741526424056447065When not making propaganda videos, if you asked those kids what do they think of Jews? They would say death to Jews and every Jew should be exterminated.
The children of Gaza are indoctrinated with hate from their parents and their hijacked religion.
The gaza population is a corrupted.
No other Muslim nation wants them because they know trouble and hate would follow.So this is fact? Evidence based on the Palestinian population? Or is this Roady heresay?
Since you're crying out for evidence and facts all the time....wanna put forward a solid case to back up this comment?
I'd like to see it, because to me, the Palestinian people look like, well,....just...you know...people. Kinda like you and me.
The Palestinians are nothing like me.
You SR are of course free to hold the same morals and wants as the Palestinians.
@Roadkill
"You get abusive because you lack ability and are easily triggered. It’s snowflake stuff not being able to remain calm"
Haha. Top Dumb and Goose swapping the joystick.
You can do better than that can't you Goose?
C'mon, trigger this snowflake, that was weak as piss.
Yeeeowch!!! Roady!! Don't be so dark!
How can you say the Palestinians are nothing like you??? Do you know any Palestinians? Ever spent time with any? What a vague assumption to make if you haven't. Surely you're not basing this of your 6 double 0 slurp? Surely.
And in reply to your other posts....
"SR, Israel doesn't have the right to defend themselves?"
Welllllll...lets break this right down, minus the pronouns shall we? In 3 easy steps.
1: Israel. (Define Israel. Do you mean the government, the military, the civilian population?). These are important distinctions because, lets not forget the mass protests to get Netanyahu out of power (by hundreds of thousands of Israelis citizens) just before this 'war' began.
2: Right/(justified): Well this is an interesting one. How do we want to frame right and justification. This week.This year, This decade. This century. What Israel did in the past? What Hamas did since they were created *cough, by Israel. Is justification enhanced or diminished when you have the greatest defence systems in the world in place,...that somehow just left the gate open and fell asleep at the wheel? Is a woman and childs death at the expense of none of your enemy target killed justification for your actions. When your enemy is completely contained within four walls, can you justify killing all the chickens in the henhouse just to get the fox? Would you? Or is there maybe a better way, when you have time and real estate on your side? Is that what justified actually sounds like?
3: Defend: HA! I've never heard anything more ridiculous than calling this slaugher a defence.
When it comes to war criminals and fascists Roady, you and Indo and Opti may find yourselves in the same line to the docks as the crew that eventually end up at The Hague if you keep this line of thinking up.
That article link didn't work says "read to many articles for free," even though ive never been on that site before.
Can someone please copy and paste the article, im super curious how anyone can have a decent counter argument to Sam Harris points, Sam sums up thing's so perfectly and logically.
Oxford dictionary definition of defend is
"resist an attack made on (someone or something); protect from harm or danger"
When people say Israel has the right to defend itself, they mean they have the right to take away the threat towards them, as we all know the aim is to destroy Hamas and take them out of power.
@Roadkill "The Palestinians are nothing like me. "
That's where you are wrong little Co-Pilot Goosey Goose.
Palestinians have the same human rights as every other human, like you, like the Jews and others in Israel, like all of us.
The difference is that you get yours, freely, without a fight, without being slaughtered because of where you were born and where you live or who is governing you.
They don't get the hand you were dealt Roady, that is different, but their rights and humanity are no different.
Now run along little Goose, and whatever you do don't let Top Dumb pull the eject button on you, that ended bad the last time.
@Southern Raw, thanks brah, believe it or not I've been multi tasking today. Removing the steering knuckles on my classic MB so I can do the ball joints and simultaneously swatting the knuckleheads on SN. Busy is happy I say.
adam12 wrote:@Roadkill
"You get abusive because you lack ability and are easily triggered. It’s snowflake stuff not being able to remain calm"Haha. Top Dumb and Goose swapping the joystick.
You can do better than that can't you Goose?
C'mon, trigger this snowflake, that was weak as piss.
Ha ha hows the irony of this reply/post
indo-dreaming wrote:Oxford dictionary definition of defend is
"resist an attack made on (someone or something); protect from harm or danger"
When people say Israel has the right to defend itself, they mean they have the right to take away the threat towards them, as we all know the aim is to destroy Hamas and take them out of power.
Oh wow! Breaking news courtesy of Indo! Thanks dearly Indo. Pretty much clears everything up. Genius! (rainman?)
haha. @adam12..the knuckleduster!! Love it.
I have no doubt which task has been more infuriating ;-)
Happy new year mate.
So how is it not true then that Israel are not defending themselves? and why dont you believe they have the right to take away the threat of Hamas?
southernraw wrote:haha. @adam12..the knuckleduster!! Love it.
I have no doubt which task has been more infuriating ;-)
Happy new year mate.
Same to you SR.
Oh are they defending themselves right now Indo?
What are they defending themselves against?
What is the threat and how likely is that threat right now?
Do they have time on their hands?
Do they have their enemy contained?
Could they do it perhaps a little more....with....military precision and patience? Do you reckon? If you had a fox in your henhouse, would you shoot all your chickens to get it, or maybe plan a way to get to it?
Have you ever been to Den Hague? You got Dutch ancestry. Could be the great homecoming for you!
At least they got rid of the guillotine. Shame Swellnet doesn't have the same for you.
Saw this today, cut and pasted, such a great post
Peter Hill Lie by lie - debunked
.
“The Palestinians want a state. They deserve a state.”
Lie!!
They don’t want a state. How do I know? You mean besides the fact that they say it loud and clear.
They HAD a state given to them in 1937 (Peel Commission), 1947 (The UN Partition Plan), 1967 (The Khartoum Summit), 1991 (The Madrid Conference), 2000 (The Camp David Summit), 2001 (The Arabs Summit), 2005 (The Disengagement from Gaza), 2007 (The Annapolis Conference), 2008 (The Realignment Plan), 2010 (The Joint Peace Talks), 2013 (The Joint Peace Talks), 2019 (The Bahrain Workshop), and 2020 (Trump Peace Plan).
All those offers were rejected by the Palestinians. They don’t want a state.
Kapeesh?
“Israel is occupying Gaza.”
Lie!!
Israel removed every single Jew from Gaza in 2005, including dead bodies who they dug up so Hamas wouldn’t commit the atrocities we now know they would have.
There was zero occupation in Gaza and as far as the claim in general that occupation is what brought Palestinian terrorism? 1929, before any occupation, before there was even a state of Israel, Arabs massacred Jews in Hebron. Google it.
“Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people.”
Lie!!
From 1990 to 2022 the population of ‘Palestine’ increased from 1.98 million to 5.04 million people. That is a growth of 155% in 32 years.
Does that sound like genocide to you?
“Israel is an apartheid state.”
Lie!!
There are Arabs in literally every possible role in Israeli society from judges to politicians to athletes to actors, and on and on.
Arabs enjoy more freedom in Israel than in ANY Muslim country.
Would an apartheid state have representatives from the “oppressed” population in their parliament? Exactly. Stop the nonsense.
“Gaza has been a prison since Israel evacuated.”
Lie!!
Israel left in 2005, and handed Gaza over to the Palestinians on a silver platter. No strings attached. Immediately the Palestinians burned down the greenhouses and turned Gaza into a terror base.
In 2006, they elected Hamas to lead them. Then, and only then, did Israel decide to defend itself from attacks. There were no blockages and no fences before Hamas was elected.
And if there is any doubt that those measures were necessary, just see what happened on October 7th when Hamas made one hole in that fence.
“Israel targets innocent people in Gaza.”
Lie!!
The IDF has made 20,000 calls, dropped 1.5m leaflets and sent 4.4 million SMS & 6 million voice messages urging civilians in northern Gaza to evacuate temporarily for their safety.
“Israel is perpetuating crimes against humanity by cutting the water and electricity in Gaza.”
Lie! there has never been a nation in the history of the world that provided water and electricity to an enemy state. We know what Hamas does with the water pipes, the fuel, and the money that comes into Gaza. We have video evidence.
Shooting rockets into Israeli cities from densely populated areas using civilians as human shields. That’s called a double war crime.
“The poor innocent Palestinians have nowhere to go!”
Lie!!
Open a map. See Gaza? See Egypt? See the border between them? That’s right. They can go to Egypt. Egypt doesn’t want them? Well, that’s unfortunate for them.
Not Israel’s problem.
“Israel stole Palestinian land and colonized them.”
Lie!!
When was this so-called Palestine established? What was its currency? Its prime minister? Its language? Its national anthem?
Never existed.
Palestine was Israel and was a term hijacked by the terrorist named Yasser Arafat.
“The PLO and Hamas are political organizations, not terrorists.”
Lie!!
Go read their charter. Here. I’ll save you the time.
Direct from their charter:
“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it."
“Peace initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement...
.There is no solution for the Palestinian problem except by Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are but a waste of time, an exercise in futility."
“The Day of Judgment will not come about until Moslems fight Jews and kill them.
Then, the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, and the rocks and trees will cry out: 'O Moslem, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him."
"Zionism scheming has no end, and after Palestine, they will covet expansion from the Nile to the Euphrates River. When they have finished digesting the area on which they have laid their hand, they will look forward to more expansion.
Their scheme has been laid out in the 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion'."
"The HAMAS regards itself the spearhead and the vanguard of the circle of struggle against World Zionism... Islamic groups all over the Arab world should also do the same, since they are best equipped for their future role in the fight against the warmongering Jews."
Still think they’re a political organization? If
adam12 wrote:@Roadkill "The Palestinians are nothing like me. "
That's where you are wrong little Co-Pilot Goosey Goose.
Palestinians have the same human rights as every other human, like you, like the Jews and others in Israel, like all of us.
The difference is that you get yours, freely, without a fight, without being slaughtered because of where you were born and where you live or who is governing you.
They don't get the hand you were dealt Roady, that is different, but their rights and humanity are no different.
Now run along little Goose, and whatever you do don't let Top Dumb pull the eject button on you, that ended bad the last time.@Southern Raw, thanks brah, believe it or not I've been multi tasking today. Removing the steering knuckles on my classic MB so I can do the ball joints and simultaneously swatting the knuckleheads on SN. Busy is happy I say.
“Palestinians have the same human rights as every other human”
Gawd, you obviously don’t understand what basic human rights are. Palestinians do not get the same human rights as us. Hamas and their religious beliefs take basic human rights from them.
Keep posting Adam..every post shows your lack of understanding.
Alright. I'm just gonna say it.
It's glaringly, no, blaringly obvious Adam12 is extremely well educated and fully comprehends world events.
When people attack that, it's a real red flag to that posters level of intellect.
I mean, everyone, and that includes a pretty huge range of posters, is well aware that A12 is pretty fucking onto it.
You need to steer your arguments away from that cheap baseless attempt at one upsmanship and stick to the core of the topic.
adam12, Do you know what our human right are? Do you really know?
You could start with the universal declaration of human rights.
Then tell me how Palestinians in Gaza get these right?
Or if you are man enough, admit you have nfi, the tell me all the rights that Palestinians don’t get
Article 1 Right to Equality
Article 2 Freedom from Discrimination
Article 3 Right to Life, Liberty, Personal Security
Article 4 Freedom from Slavery
Article 5 Freedom from Torture and Degrading Treatment
Article 6 Right to Recognition as a Person before the Law
Article 7 Right to Equality before the Law
Article 8 Right to Remedy by Competent Tribunal
Article 9 Freedom from Arbitrary Arrest and Exile
Article 10 Right to Fair Public Hearing
Article 11 Right to be Considered Innocent until Proven Guilty
Article 12 Freedom from Interference with Privacy, Family, Home and Correspondence
Article 13 Right to Free Movement in and out of the Country
Article 14 Right to Asylum in other Countries from Persecution
Article 15 Right to a Nationality and the Freedom to Change It
Article 16 Right to Marriage and Family
Article 17 Right to Own Property
Article 18 Freedom of Belief and Religion
Article 19 Freedom of Opinion and Information
Article 20 Right of Peaceful Assembly and Association
Article 21 Right to Participate in Government and in Free Elections
Article 22 Right to Social Security
Article 23 Right to Desirable Work and to Join Trade Unions
Article 24 Right to Rest and Leisure
Article 25 Right to Adequate Living Standard
Article 26 Right to Education
Article 27 Right to Participate in the Cultural Life of Community
Article 28 Right to a Social Order that Articulates this Document
Article 29 Community Duties Essential to Free and Full Development
Article 30 Freedom from State or Personal Interference in the above Rights
1 and 2 are a great start.
Unless you’re gay, or a girl, or a woman….lol.
hehe Roady the voice of Palestinian rights.
nek minnut....'the Palestinians are nothing like me'....etc...
southernraw wrote:Oh are they defending themselves right now Indo?
What are they defending themselves against?
What is the threat and how likely is that threat right now?
Do they have time on their hands?
Do they have their enemy contained?
Could they do it perhaps a little more....with....military precision and patience? Do you reckon? If you had a fox in your henhouse, would you shoot all your chickens to get it, or maybe plan a way to get to it?
Have you ever been to Den Hague? You got Dutch ancestry. Could be the great homecoming for you!
At least they got rid of the guillotine. Shame Swellnet doesn't have the same for you.
They are constantly under threat they have been for decades, rockets are fired into Gaza even outside of times of war only reason there aren't more deaths in Israel is because they have the iron dome, Hamas openly say they would and will do 7th October again.
7th October shows how real the threat is and how all the things in place really create a false sense of security
It would be completely insane to not take this threat away and Hamas will only get stronger smarter and more game and develop better rockets and that threat is likely to increase if left.
Israel not retaliating in a proper way after 7th Oct would also send a message to Iran, yeah their money is well spent they get an attack and then Hamas still gets live on, while IDF destroying everything Iran has funded shows Iran that it all comes at a cost, and they might get a win but they also lose a lot, is it really worth it to keep funding Hamas?
You and me aren't military experts, but you clearly aren't listening to those that are, the method of attack Israel is using makes 100% sense, ive broken it down before regurgitating whats ive learnt from those in the know and it all makes complete sense.
You're idea that war should be like an AFL game and all equal is ridiculous, wars are to be won,
As for patience im sure Israel has plenty of patience, but its people in the West that think Israel can or should be able to get things done in weeks or even months , this doesn't help Israel at all, it just means they need to get as much of Hamas infrastructure destroyed while they can, then go into a more precise attack mode from the ground which is much much more risky for IDF and would see much more IDF deaths.
shit, what's happening over on this thread? RK is saying that 2/3 of Palestinians who DIDN'T vote for Hamas (and the 1/3 who did), HAVEN'T had basic human rights, and are now being bombed to absolute fuck.. well, maybe there's room for some empathy there, from the Gunners?
indo-dreaming wrote:So how is it not true then that Israel are not defending themselves? and why dont you believe they have the right to take away the threat of Hamas?
Well this is where the rubber hits the road Indo.
In all seriousness and without belittling you, abusing you or calling you names.
They both have those rights. To defend themselves and to remove any threats. The Israelis and the Palestinians. All States do.
But how do you go about that?
How does that work when one side is so powerful and the other is not?
How do you achieve that security when the leadership of both sides are beyond that and committing crimes against humanity and perpetuating a cycle of murder and hate and dehumanisation?
Not by killing the innocent, not by terrorist acts like Oct 7 or bombing civilians and hospitals and schools and refugee camps in revenge.
Israel had the chance to protect its borders from a known threat and failed. Hamas knew what would happen after Oct 7 and did it anyway. Both sides leaders use the tactics of terror. Both sides unleash their murderers on the other. Both are innocent, both are guilty.
That's why you cheerleading one side and dehumanising the other pisses me off, and I believe you think the correct position for your conservative beliefs is to take the side of Israel, that's up to you, but I've got no side to take in this whole shitty affair other than the innocent victims, who right now are those like those Gaza children in that video wishing us here in the West a happy New Year when they could be dead or getting a limb amputated without anesthetic tomorrow.
If you have to kill innocent children by the thousands to defend yourself then what the fuck is it that you are defending and at what cost?
They didn't have to do this to defend themselves and they are never going to be safe from the consequences.
There were other ways, I couldn't be bothered putting some of those ideas to you now. Maybe tomorrow.
Despite the acrimony between us, I do sorta kinda enjoy this to and fro at times, keeps me entertained for a while at least.
Go hug your kids and happy new year to you too Top Dumb.
Until we get at it again.
Don't change man, don't change.
SN’s cheerleader of the cunts( Indo) has been working hard for the hasbara today, and his little Pom-Pom girl RK. Shake those Pom-poms RK shake ‘em.
Sam Harris to legitimise positionseh’Except he fucked our little cheer squad with one line.
“I don’t think Israel should exist as a Jewish state. I think it is obscene, irrational and unjustifiable to have a state organized around a religion. So I don’t celebrate the idea that there’s a Jewish homeland in the Middle East. I certainly don’t support any Jewish claims to real estate based on the Bible. [Note: Read this paragraph again]”
Which makes his criticism of resistance pretty duplicitous.
But hey, Pom- pom shakers will shake Pom- poms even when they have no fucking idea.
Try Norman Finkelstien lads or maybe Gabor Mate. First hand experience with no BS. I know you won’t because it would challenge your own beliefs.
Hey Indo.
Your reply completely closes the circle of your argument. Perfect definition of the term.
Again, there is no way i'd ever try to debate or discuss with this kind of mind set. Futility and wasted energy. Not something i'd waste on the internet in 2024. ;-)
Circlejerking out of here. Yew!
adam12 wrote:indo-dreaming wrote:So how is it not true then that Israel are not defending themselves? and why dont you believe they have the right to take away the threat of Hamas?
Well this is where the rubber hits the road Indo.
In all seriousness and without belittling you, abusing you or calling you names.
They both have those rights. To defend themselves and to remove any threats. The Israelis and the Palestinians. All States do.
But how do you go about that?
How does that work when one side is so powerful and the other is not?
How do you achieve that security when the leadership of both sides are beyond that and committing crimes against humanity and perpetuating a cycle of murder and hate and dehumanisation?
Not by killing the innocent, not by terrorist acts like Oct 7 or bombing civilians and hospitals and schools and refugee camps in revenge.
Israel had the chance to protect its borders from a known threat and failed. Hamas knew what would happen after Oct 7 and did it anyway. Both sides leaders use the tactics of terror. Both sides unleash their murderers on the other. Both are innocent, both are guilty.
That's why you cheerleading one side and dehumanising the other pisses me off, and I believe you think the correct position for your conservative beliefs is to take the side of Israel, that's up to you, but I've got no side to take in this whole shitty affair other than the innocent victims, who right now are those like those Gaza children in that video wishing us here in the West a happy New Year when they could be dead or getting a limb amputated without anesthetic tomorrow.
If you have to kill innocent children by the thousands to defend yourself then what the fuck is it that you are defending and at what cost?
They didn't have to do this to defend themselves and do that and they are never going to be safe from the consequences.
There were other ways, I couldn't be bothered putting some of those ideas to you now. Maybe tomorrow.
Despite the acrimony between us, I do sorta kinda enjoy this to and fro at times, keeps me entertained for a while at least.
Go hug your kids and happy new year to you too Top Dumb.
Until we get at it again.
Don't change man, don't change.
Yep, you kind of nailed it there.
This thread kind of reminds me of this.....
https://m.
&pp=ygUVU2hhcGlybyB2cyBkciBOb3JtYW4g +1 ^^^
adam12 wrote:indo-dreaming wrote:So how is it not true then that Israel are not defending themselves? and why dont you believe they have the right to take away the threat of Hamas?
Well this is where the rubber hits the road Indo.
In all seriousness and without belittling you, abusing you or calling you names.
They both have those rights. To defend themselves and to remove any threats. The Israelis and the Palestinians. All States do.
But how do you go about that?
How does that work when one side is so powerful and the other is not?
How do you achieve that security when the leadership of both sides are beyond that and committing crimes against humanity and perpetuating a cycle of murder and hate and dehumanisation?
Not by killing the innocent, not by terrorist acts like Oct 7 or bombing civilians and hospitals and schools and refugee camps in revenge.
Israel had the chance to protect its borders from a known threat and failed. Hamas knew what would happen after Oct 7 and did it anyway. Both sides leaders use the tactics of terror. Both sides unleash their murderers on the other. Both are innocent, both are guilty.
That's why you cheerleading one side and dehumanising the other pisses me off, and I believe you think the correct position for your conservative beliefs is to take the side of Israel, that's up to you, but I've got no side to take in this whole shitty affair other than the innocent victims, who right now are those like those Gaza children in that video wishing us here in the West a happy New Year when they could be dead or getting a limb amputated without anesthetic tomorrow.
If you have to kill innocent children by the thousands to defend yourself then what the fuck is it that you are defending and at what cost?
They didn't have to do this to defend themselves and they are never going to be safe from the consequences.
There were other ways, I couldn't be bothered putting some of those ideas to you now. Maybe tomorrow.
Despite the acrimony between us, I do sorta kinda enjoy this to and fro at times, keeps me entertained for a while at least.
Go hug your kids and happy new year to you too Top Dumb.
Until we get at it again.
Don't change man, don't change.
Sam Harris post above pretty much deals with everything you have posted and he puts it all 100 times better than i ever could, if you dont understand what he is saying, well i think you just don't want too.
andy-mac wrote:This thread kind of reminds me of this.....
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eF4ez-iHIyU&pp=ygUVU2hhcGlybyB2cyBkciBOb3J...
Oh god, im not going to click on that video but i know both their positions and i like Ben.
But fuck those two are both the crazy extreme in their views on this, more extreme than pretty much anyone else
BTW. Ive listened to that Norman Finkelstein guy in this and another one or two videos or podcast, fuck that guy is a twisted piece of absolute trash, he actually openly supports Hamas and tries to justify 7th October.
I think i watched a video the other day where he storms put of the debate (not Mikhala one)
Edit: No actually was Miko Peled also openly support's and justifies Hamas actions
&t=6s
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