The Israel Palestine problem solving thread
andy-mac wrote: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.
+1. Answered the semi rhetorical questions (cos you'd have to be a dope to not comprehend this) i put forth.
indo-dreaming wrote: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 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 Mickhala one)
&t=6s
I will debate you, but only read and view information that confirms my already set opinion on situation as want to protect my cognitive dissonance...
Is that what you are saying??
@Indo”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.”
Anyone who doesn’t agree with you, even Finkelstien, a Jewish political scientist who lost his family in the haulocaust.
Better edumucate him too Indo.
@Indo,
I do understand what Sam Harris was saying, every word of it, and I do understand the position you are taking.
I just don't agree with (most of) it.
If you get time read this, see what you think,
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/11/sam-harriss-fairy-tale-account-o...
Sun's nearly down, I'm going to bed, I'll check in on this rolling circus of opinion and abuse tommorrow.
adam12 wrote:@Indo,
I do understand what Sam Harris was saying, every word of it, and I do understand the position you are taking.
I just don't agree with (most of) it.
If you get time read this, see what you think,
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/11/sam-harriss-fairy-tale-account-o...
Sun's nearly down, I'm going to bed, I'll check in on this rolling circus of opinion and abuse tommorrow.
As i said before id really like to read this as im very interested in seeing how anyone could bring any sort of decent counter argument to what Sam says, but the link wont let me view it, so someone that can read it, please copy and paste the article here.
@adam12 recommended reading for @indo-dreaming:
ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR NOV. 16, 2023
Sam Harris’s Fairy-Tale Account of the Israel-Hamas Conflict
Portrait of Eric Levitz
By Eric Levitz, features writer for Intelligencer who covers politics and economics
Sam Harris is among America’s most prominent critics of fundamentalist thinking. The “new atheist” podcaster, meditation guru, and erstwhile neuroscientist has written multiple books lamenting the destructive power of religious certainty in general and Islamism in particular.
There are admirable aspects to Harris’s work. I’ve found his meditations on free will and the nature of consciousness stimulating. And I share his conviction that unsparing criticism of repressive, antifeminist theologies should take precedence over concerns for multiculturalism.
Yet on questions of foreign policy, Harris’s thinking can become nearly as dogmatic and blinkered as that of the religious zealots he’s dedicated himself to discrediting.
This was especially apparent on a recent episode of his podcast titled “The Bright Line Between Good and Evil.” Over the course of an hour, Harris laid out his views on Israel and why its present war with Hamas must be understood as a battle between “savagery and civilization.”
The core contention of his audio essay was that neither the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict, nor the policies of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, is at all relevant for understanding why Hamas perpetrated atrocities on October 7. In Harris’s account, the terrorist group’s decision to launch an unprecedented attack against Israel didn’t derive from any earthly motivation, let alone from specific political grievances or national ambitions. Rather, Hamas is simply a jihadist organization, comprising individuals who wish to secure entry to eternal paradise by killing infidels. As Harris argues:
Now, there are many things to be said in criticism of Israel, in particular its expansion of settlements on contested land. But Israel’s behavior is not what explains the suicidal and genocidal inclinations of a group like Hamas. The Islamic doctrines of martyrdom and jihad do.
These are religious beliefs, sincerely held. They are beliefs about the moral structure of the universe. And they explain how normal people — even good ones — can commit horrific acts of violence against innocent civilians — on purpose, not as collateral damage — and still consider themselves good. When you believe that life in this world has no value, apart from deciding who goes to hell and who goes to Paradise, it becomes possible to feel perfectly at ease killing noncombatants, or even using your own women and children as human shields, because you know that any Muslims who get killed will go to Paradise for eternity.
If you don’t understand that jihadists sincerely believe these things, you don’t understand the problem Israel faces. The problem isn’t merely Palestinian nationalism, or resource competition, or any other normal terrestrial grievance. In fact, the problem isn’t even hatred, though there is enough of that to go around. The problem is religious certainty.
Ironically, Harris’s own position resembles religious fanaticism in its willful incuriosity. On Israel-Palestine, the celebrated atheist refuses to test the dogmatic tenets of a Manichaen worldview against either the historical record or present-day evidence. Instead of challenging his audience to grapple with the complex origins of the present war, he serves them a fairy tale in which the forces of “civilization” struggle against evildoers, whose malevolence derives from no political history or context but merely from their demonic possession by the mind-virus of jihad.
In saying this, I don’t mean to suggest that jihadist ideology played no role in Hamas’s actions. The inverse of Harris’s view is also misguided. Some on the left have suggested that October 7 was entirely determined by (a one-sided account of) the attack’s political and historical context. In this view, Hamas militants’ decision to murder 846 Israeli civilians — in some cases, after forcing them to witness the torture and execution of their family members — was a mechanical response to Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people. To various Harvard student groups, this orgy of sadistic violence was such an inevitable reaction to Israeli apartheid that Israel was “entirely responsible” for it.
Insisting that the downtrodden inevitably commit mass atrocities in response to oppression might help a putatively progressive Hamas apologist evade cognitive dissonance. After all, if October 7 was an inexorable consequence of Israel’s policies, then you can reconcile horror at its toll with your sect’s taboo against criticizing the oppressed. From this perspective, condemning Hamas for committing mass murder would be as pointless as condemning a knee for kicking back at a doctor’s plexor.
For actually understanding Hamas’s attack, however, such crude determinism is unhelpful. Atrocities of the scale and severity of October 7 are not inevitable features of resistance struggles; indeed, they are not even common features of them. Understanding why Palestinian militance took the peculiar form it did on October 7 requires more information than any list of Israeli crimes can proffer. And it is plausible that Hamas’s theocratic worldview — which includes a reverence for jihadist violence — informed the character of its assault on southern Israel.
Nevertheless, insisting that Hamas’s actions were caused exclusively by jihadism is at least as mindless as claiming that they were entirely determined by Palestinian subjugation.
Harris’s theory of Hamas’s terrorism makes sense if you know nothing about Hamas.
Harris’s case for why we can safely conclude that Hamas’s 30,000 members are entirely (and uniformly) motivated by a metaphysical desire for martyrdom, rather than concrete political grievances, is built on a single argument: Hamas is a self-described jihadist group, and jihadist groups frequently commit atrocities that have no coherent political aim. As Harris writes, “There have been nearly 50,000 acts of Islamic terrorism in the last 40 years … 90 percent of them have occurred in Muslim countries. Most have nothing to do with Israel or the Jews.” He notes that in 2014, “six jihadis affiliated with the Pakistani Taliban attacked a school in Peshawar,” murdering 132 children and burning a teacher alive in front of her students. They committed these horrors in the name of no earthly cause, and issued no set of demands. Their rationale for the atrocities was entirely religious.
For Harris, the fact that some self-described jihadists have committed atrocities for purely metaphysical reasons means that no self-described jihadist could possibly be motivated primarily by political grievances. The fallacy here is so obvious that it’s hard to see how someone as intelligent as Harris could fail to recognize it. His logic is scarcely distinguishable from the statement “Stalin was an atheist, and committed violence in the name of socialism. Therefore, all atheists who commit violence are exclusively motivated by socialist ideology.” Clearly, it is possible for groups to share a broad worldview without having identical motives or commitments.
There is another obvious logical problem with Harris’s insistence that Hamas’s actions are explained by bad theology, and only bad theology: This stance cannot explain why these vile religious ideas acquire currency in one context but not in others. The Quran was not introduced to Palestine in 1987, the year Hamas was founded. So how can we explain why an extremist interpretation of that book came to prominence in a given region at a given time without reference to history or politics? Even if we stipulate (falsely) that Hamas’s ideology is as apolitical as Harris suggests, that would not prove that its outlook’s popularity in Palestine was unrelated to that nation’s political subjugation.
The primary problem with Harris’s monologue, however, isn’t logical but empirical. His rant betrays a total lack of interest in testing his theory of Hamas’s motives against actual evidence. He makes no reference to Hamas’s history — which is convenient, since it is very difficult to reconcile that history with the theory that the organization isn’t motivated by political grievances. Hamas took shape during the First Intifada, in response to the killing of four Palestinian day workers at a Gaza checkpoint. During its first year of existence, it submitted a request for negotiations to then–Israeli defense minister Yitzhak Rabin, and demanded an end to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands and the right of refugees from the 1948 war to return to their ancestral homes within Israel. The latter issue was of special importance to Hamas’s founder, Ahmed Yassin, who had been uprooted by Israel during the Nakba. After Israel rebuffed these demands, and killed more than 142 Gazans in the course of suppressing the Palestinian uprising, Hamas commenced its campaign to destroy Israel through terrorism.
Hamas’s ideology is plainly Islamist, violent, and antisemitic. And its founding charter declared that “There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through jihad.” But Hamas’s form of jihad has always been in service of a narrow, nationalistic project. Unlike Salafi groups such as Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, Hamas does not have a transnational project, nor is its brand of Sharia as extreme and thoroughgoing as that of ISIS. In fact, it has often found itself in conflict with Gaza’s smaller, more radical organizations.
None of this is meant to defend Hamas, let alone to justify its various crimes against humanity. It is only to say that (1) the organization was created to achieve terrestrial, political ends; (2) its embrace of violence was rooted less in metaphysical judgments than strategic ones; and (3) its brand of jihadism is idiosyncratic and distinct from that of the Salafi groups with whom Harris is most familiar.
This does not necessarily mean that ISIS and its brand of jihadism had no influence on the October 7 attackers. For one thing, some of the perpetrators were affiliated with groups even more extreme than Hamas. For another, it seems likely that at least some of the attackers were familiar with ISIS’s viral propaganda, including its myriad snuff videos glorifying spectacular violence. But Harris is making an incredibly strong claim — that Israeli behavior and Palestinian nationalism do not even partly explain Hamas’s violence, which is entirely attributable to religious extremism. And that claim is irreconcilable with even a cursory understanding of the group’s history.
When jihadists tell you who they are, believe them?
Harris is as willfully ignorant of Hamas’s present as he is with its past. He suggests that western academics who refuse to recognize that religious fanaticism (not vengeful nationalism) drives Hamas’s violence have their fingers in their ears. As he argues:
The humanities and social science departments of every university are filled with scholars and pseudo-scholars — deemed to be experts in terrorism, religion, Islamic jurisprudence, anthropology, political science, and other fields — who claim that Muslim extremism is never what it seems. These experts insist that we can never take jihadists at their word and that none of their declarations about God, paradise, martyrdom, and the evils of apostasy have anything to do with their real motivations.
Yet when it comes to Hamas, it is Harris who refuses to take the jihadists at their word. The leader of Hamas’s military wing, Mohammed Deif, told the Associated Press that the October 7 attack “was in response to the 16-year blockade of Gaza, Israeli raids inside West Bank cities over the past year, violence at Al Aqsa — the disputed Jerusalem holy site sacred to Jews as the Temple Mount — increasing attacks by settlers on Palestinians and the growth of settlements.”
Another Hamas official, Basem Naim, told the Washington Post that “Jewish settler attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank and the storming of Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa Mosque by settlers” motivated October 7. Several other Hamas officials told the New York Times that they decided to launch an attack of unprecedented scale because they felt the Palestinian national cause was slipping away. Major Arab nations were seeking normalization with Israel, after decades of insisting that a two-state solution would be a precondition for such a rapprochement. Israel had not only ceased pursuing peace talks, but had ramped up its construction of illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, while using extralegal violence and housing regulations to force Palestinian families off their land. Hamas says that it found this status quo intolerable and aimed to upend it — and galvanize global attention to the Palestinian cause — through acts of spectacular violence.
It is possible that Hamas is lying. An organization willing to mass-murder children is surely willing to tell falsehoods. But Harris is the one arguing that we should take jihadists at their word — and yet he manifestly refuses to do so, or else, he did not bother to look up what Hamas’s stated rationale for its attack was.
You don’t need to be a jihadi to be a brutal terrorist in Israel-Palestine.
From Harris’s perspective, the only antecedents for October 7 are atrocities committed by other modern jihadist groups. Yet terroristic violence against civilians has been a feature of the Israel-Palestine conflict from the very beginning, and long before the popularization of jihadism in Palestine. And such violence has often been rooted in the mutual and contradictory nationalisms of the region’s Jews and Arabs, not Islamist metaphysics.
The 1929 Hebron massacre, in which Palestinian mobs killed at least 67 Jews, was ostensibly motivated by religious grievance; the Palestinians were incited by rumors that Jews were about to seize control of the Temple Mount. But the power of these rumors derived from a broader, nationalist resistance to Zionism. Many militant Palestinian nationalists came to believe that they could beat back the tide of Jewish immigration — and secure Palestine against the threat of Zionist domination — by mass-murdering Jewish civilians until the intruders fled the region en masse. As Ian Black recounts in his history of the Israel-Palestine conflict, Rashid al-Haj Ibrahim, an Arab nationalist leader, warned a group of anti-Zionist activists in 1933 that “the Jews are advancing on all fronts.” Ibrahim continued:
They keep buying land, they bring in immigrants both legally and illegally … If we cannot demonstrate to them convincingly enough that all their efforts are in vain and that we are capable of destroying them at one stroke, then we shall have to lose our holy land or resign ourselves to being wretched second-class citizens in a Jewish state.
Asked how they could demonstrate the futility of the Zionist project, Ibrahim replied, “By doing what we did in 1929, but using more efficient methods.”
Yet a belief in both the morality and efficacy of terroristic violence was not exclusive to the conflict’s Arab side. Jewish terrorist organizations massacred Arab and British civilians, out of both retributive rage and political calculation.
During Israel’s War of Independence, meanwhile, Jewish militias committed a number of atrocities, including the infamous Deir Yassin massacre. Despite the fact that the Palestinian village of Deir Yassin had signed a peace pact with the region’s Jews, Israeli forces invaded the town and massacred at least 107 villagers, including women and children who were attempting to flee or surrender. There are credible reports that some villagers were mutilated and raped. Other captives were paraded through West Jerusalem, where they were jeered, stoned, and murdered.
This brutality had precisely the effect that Arab nationalists had aimed to achieve through terrorism, only in reverse: It enabled ethnic cleansing by terrifying Palestinians into fleeing their homes. As the Irgun commander Menachem Begin wrote, “The legend [of Deir Yassin] was worth half a dozen battalions to the forces of Israel.”
In more recent decades, secular Arab nationalists have upheld this binational tradition of terroristic violence. The Marxist-Leninist Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine massacred children on an Israeli school bus in 1970. Four years later, the group killed 25 people at an Israeli school, including 22 children, with grenades and automatic weapons.
All of this is to say, violence against civilians has been an endemic feature of the Israel-Palestine conflict. And in the course of that long struggle, atrocities not dissimilar to those of October 7 have been committed by secular nationalists, both Palestinian and Israeli.
Therefore, the notion that Hamas’s brutality derives entirely from the transhistorical evil of jihadist ideology — rather than the cycles of violence against civilians that have long plagued Israel-Palestine — rests on nothing but dubious speculation.
From one angle, whether Hamas’s terrorism is informed by political grievances and historical experience (as opposed to mere Islamist metaphysics) may look immaterial. Either way, one can reasonably argue that the group is committed to destroying Israel through the mass killing of Jews.
Yet there are real perils to substituting a Manichaean fairy tale for a clear-eyed understanding of the present war and its origins. By imagining Israel’s enemies as a death cult motivated by no earthly grievance, Harris suggests that Israel can only combat Palestinian extremism through military force. And yet, whatever becomes of Hamas after the present conflict, ideologies glorifying violent resistance — whether Islamist or secular — are liable to retain popularity among Palestinians, so long as Israel continues to frustrate their legitimate aspirations.
A consistent feature of public opinion in Palestine is that support for peace and a two-state solution tends to increase when the latter appears possible and diminish when Israel abandons negotiations. During the Oslo peace process of the 1990s, when a two-state solution looked like an imminent possibility, Palestinians supported negotiations over violent resistance by an 80 to 20 percent margin. This September, by contrast, as the most right-wing government in Israel’s history was expanding settlements in the West Bank, 54 percent of Palestinians told pollsters that they supported armed attacks against Israel. In one July poll, between 60 and 75 percent of Palestinians had a positive view of Islamic Jihad and the Lion’s Den, terrorist organizations even more extreme in their Islamism than Hamas.
There may be comfort in imagining that human beings who gleefully burn people alive cannot possibly be motivated by any legitimate, terrestrial grievance. To suggest otherwise can feel like apologetics for butchery. But this is a fallacy. To explain the causes of an atrocity is not to justify it. And blinding oneself to a subset of such causes can foreclose potential paths toward peace.
In the specific case of October 7, meanwhile, insisting that Palestinian terrorism is wholly unrelated to “Israel’s behavior” abets the most reactionary elements within Israeli politics. If Palestinian jihadist groups and their many sympathizers are principally motivated by a desire to slaughter their way to eternal paradise — rather than to achieve self-government and security here on earth — then Israel might be wiser to expel the Palestinians than honor their rights under international law. And many Israeli officials have entertained the idea of ethnically cleansing the Gaza Strip in recent weeks.
Further, Harris’s insistence on attributing Hamas’s violence entirely to apolitical motivations reflects a broader tendency to reduce the Israel-Palestine conflict into a simple, “good” versus “evil” binary. At one point in his monologue, Harris argues that “if the Palestinians put down their weapons, there would be peace; if the Israelis put down their weapons, there would be a genocide.” But this is only true in the most facile sense. In the West Bank, which is governed by a secular Palestinian Authority that cooperates with Israel, the Palestinians have largely abstained from terroristic resistance. Yet putting down their weapons has won them repression and dispossession by a Jewish supremacist settler movement, not peace. Of course, if Palestinians gamely submit to indefinite occupation, then there may be “peace” in some sense of the word. But it would not be the sort of peace that any Israeli would find tolerable were they put in the Palestinians’ position.
Religious fundamentalism is a blight on humanity. It leads people to prefer dogma to rational inquiry, and to imagine all intergroup conflicts as timeless struggles between good and evil, even in instances where both parties have legitimate grievances. But rejecting theology does not immunize one against close-minded certainty. Tribalism tugs at the human mind like gravity. It takes diligence to prevent one’s thoughts from slinking back toward sectarian pieties. The moment you believe that you’re immune to such dogmatism, you become vulnerable to it. One hazard of militant atheism then is that it can lead people to believe that they possess such immunity.
Harris surely thinks that his analysis of Israel and Hamas is grounded on pure reason. In reality, it rests on blind faith.
Thanks Basix.
Cheers basesix
Okay so his problem with Sam is Sam focusses to much on the Jihadist element and claims he ignores other aspects.
Which i dont really think is true, the problem is more almost everyone completely ignores the Jihadist element and mindset, so Sam needs to focus heavily on the things most ignore.
Be completely honest with yourself, if the land borders were exactly the same but history had been different and no major historic land disputes or dispossession and Jews and Muslims just happened to be neighbours do you honestly think there wouldn't be similar issues and groups? Do you honestly think the Islamic neighbours would happily just stick to their own business and focus on building a great country? and say hey cool you guys practice that religion over there and we will practice ours over here.
If you really think so, you are either not being honest or completely ignorant.
Theres a good reason why the majority of the population in the middle east are muslim, and it's not because Islam is any more believable than other religion's born in the region, it's because its a religion that is totally intolerant of other religions you either convert or you suffer.
Even in Indonesia where Islam is basically Islam light, you can still see this effect.
And the idea Hamas is fighting for others in other areas of Palestine or Israel or carried out 7th October looking out for others in the west Bank or whatever is obviously complete BS obviously Hamas would have said things like that because they wanted Hezbollah to jump in on the action and for Israel to fight a full on war on all fronts.
As for the blockades on borders, both Israel and Egypt only put blockades on their borders when Hamas broke the peace deal, i mean seriously Egypt wants little to do with Gaza despite being Arab and Islamic, actually much of the middle east bar Iran wants little or nothing to do with Gaza or Hamas, it's viewed for what it is a terrorist state.
And Hamas sure weren't fighting for Arab Muslims living in Israel because on 7th October they murdered some and kidnapped more than haldf a dozen, those Arab Muslims that hide and survived said they heard their friend's/family murdered pleading in Arabic that they are muslims too, but they didn't care because they see them as traitors. (like i see you guys)
The problem is some (especially the left) always want to see groups and their values as equal, Adam even admits this he says it pisses him of that i dehumanise one side.
IDF and Hamas are not equal their actions and values shows this Sam highlights this better than i ever can in his post.
Like he says its just a ridiculous concept to flip things around, Israel using their own as human shield's would have zero deterrence effect, it would be seen by Hamas as a huge bonus, a two for one deal.
BTW. in regard to flipping things around, again be honest with yourself if we flipped things around and Israel had Gaza and Hamas had Israel.
Do you think Hamas would be happy and leave Israeli's alone in Gaza?
Do you think Gaza would be a shit hole riddled with tunnels, or a Singapore in the middle east?
Anyway if anyone read's what Sam has to say and doesn't get it, i think they never will and any discussion here is pointless, but its so hard to watch westerners so brain washed and used like putty in the hands of Hamas though and just let all the BS go by.
BTW. That Son of Hamas guy, who is the son of a major Hamas leader and use to be Hamas and knows how they think, really the best in having a proper understanding of their mind set, and his thoughts align very much with Sam's
PS. Credit to the writer for admitting or hinting at little aspects many ignore though, while hamas are not ISIS and ive listened to ISIS experts explain why they differ, ISIS paraphernalia has often been found in hamas raids, also good he noted "They keep buying land," many dont know that even as far back as the late 1800's the main way Israel land was reclaimed by Jews was through purchasing it and in most case's it was owned by very well off people from other countries from memory mostly Turkey and then leased to Arab farmers who were then displaced once purchased.
Much of Israel land was barren and still is which is also the problem when people try to compare any historic two state solutions in land percentage terms, these two state solutions have actually been terrible deals for Jews even in the rare case where Jews were going to get slightly more than 50%, almost all they were going to get was barren land that is like lunar landscape while Arabs were going to get most of the fertile land and most of the highly valued historic/cultural/religious sites.
That Norman guy in the interview i posted was intentionally misleading with this aspect and its commonly parroted.
BTW. comparing events from 100 years ago to today to claim this or that is silly, the difference is the mindset and values of most in places like Israel and the West like Australia has evolved greatly even in the last 100 years, even in the last 30 years, while the mindset of those like Hamas or even much of the population in Islamic countries has barely evolved because of the grasp of Islam.
There is endless examples of how Israel/Jews have evolved while Islam/Gaza has not just look at the huge differences in how women or gays are treated, Israel is easily the most progressive country in the middle east.
In some ways more progressive than some Western countries, abortion legal, LGBTQI legal and even yearly Mardi Gra, SSM recognised, Pot de criminalised, very high proportion of military female including high position, admittedly Netanyahu has put things back a little a probably would more so if e stayed in power for example, prostitution is no longer legal.
Remember this is in an area of the world where its often illegal to be gay or drink alcohol and women even need minders to go out in public, or honor killings are often ignored by law/courts. (Honor killings being women killed by partner or family because they have brought shame on the family through having sex before marriage etc, often sadly unproved and just suspected )
Al these above things apply to Gaza showing how backwards the place is, and im a fkn conservative for gods sake, but id probably be seen as far left for my views in Gaza.
The all knowing sage has spoken
goofyfoot wrote:The all knowing sage has spoken
If you have nothing to add Goofy, then fuck off you clearly have no interest in this topic, all you do is come in with one liners insulting me because i share different views to you.
It's a forum you know a place where we discuss thing's and bring different views, and most of the views we share are just things we have learnt from others much more knowledgeable than us and we are just regurgitating their views and maybe adding in a little of our own take.
If you dont want to read my views, go click on one of the many other threads that I have zero interest in.
Japans military were , maybe, fanatical .
Never give up types .
Even though ALL of Japan was on its knees and , almost defenceless, they wouldn’t surrender .
It takes a Surrender or Peace to stop a war .
It takes TWO sides to make a war STOP .
We all know what the USA did to force the Japanese Military machine to , finally give up .
Surely we can ask BOTH sides to Stop this slaughter !
Israel pause now , for humanitarian reasons , what do Hamas do ?
If like the last ceasefire , nothing , again .
The longer this goes on , the worse it will get imho
Japan and Germany are so interesting in how they were so decimated by Western forces but are now close allies with the countries that decimated them and even the people in generally dont hold grudges and it really wasn't that long ago in the scheme of thing's.
I think there is a lot to learn here.
Oh no Indo I am interested in the topic, as many others might be, it’s just with you providing every second comment and smothering the thread with your relentless repetitive unwavering opinions it becomes almost unbearable to read.
I think you'd be surprised how long people hold grudges @indo, when it comes to seeing their bloodline and loved ones slaughtered, even if 'countries' appear not to.
Japan has curtailed this by not talking about the 2ndWW in schools. Japanese uni students come to Aus and are appalled to find out 'what their country did' and bow and apologise profusely. But I've met older people from Belgium, for example, that still remember their grandparents being flung off cliffs, and say vary darkly 'we will never forget' when in private company. Lotsa under the surface tensions in the EU.
True, Europe has been relatively settled for 70 years, but it is the unbending religious friction in Israel/Palestine that distinguishes it.
Pop Down wrote:Japans military were , maybe, fanatical .
Never give up types .Even though ALL of Japan was on its knees and , almost defenceless, they wouldn’t surrender .
It takes a Surrender or Peace to stop a war .
It takes TWO sides to make a war STOP .
We all know what the USA did to force the Japanese Military machine to , finally give up .
Surely we can ask BOTH sides to Stop this slaughter !
Israel pause now , for humanitarian reasons , what do Hamas do ?
If like the last ceasefire , nothing , again .
The longer this goes on , the worse it will get imho
except 1 side has a charter to eradicate every jew off the face of the earth. So how can you have peace with that?
indo-dreaming wrote:Japan and Germany are so interesting in how they were so decimated by Western forces but are now close allies with the countries that decimated them and even the people in generally dont hold grudges and it really wasn't that long ago in the scheme of thing's.
I think there is a lot to learn here.
Not just western forces. Heard of the Russian front?
goofyfoot wrote:Oh no Indo I am interested in the topic, as many others might be, it’s just with you providing every second comment and smothering the thread with your relentless repetitive unwavering opinions it becomes almost unbearable to read.
Yet you say nothing when Jelly brain goes on a binge here????
He hasn't been posting the last few days but this thread and topic has been completely dominated by him, i doubt im even the second highest poster in this thread, i havent added up the post but quite a few others have posted similar numbers to me in the last few days
People like you are basically modern day fascist, all you do is try to shut down people who have views that dont align with your own, you seem to have become like Guy someone that only comment's in a thread with a comment aimed at me rather than the actual topic being discussed.
Ive only seen three comments from you in the last two days and all three are just aimed at dissing me.
BTW, If i gave a reply to every person that replies to me or aims a post at me id be posting even more, go back and have a look at the comments just on the last two pages that ive ignored comments aimed at me from, Soggy dog, Andy Mac, SR (ignored Soggy twice and Andy three times)
I have too because if i didn't id be posting here even more and is it is i waste too much time here.
And apologies to basesix id like to reply but i better go do some stuff.
Pop Down wrote:Japans military were , maybe, fanatical .
Never give up types .
Hi Pop!
The last known surrender from WW2 was in December 1974.
More detail here:
basesix wrote:@adam12 recommended reading for @indo-dreaming:
ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR NOV. 16, 2023
Sam Harris’s Fairy-Tale Account of the Israel-Hamas Conflict
Portrait of Eric Levitz
By Eric Levitz, features writer for Intelligencer who covers politics and economicsSam Harris is among America’s most prominent critics of fundamentalist thinking. The “new atheist” podcaster, meditation guru, and erstwhile neuroscientist has written multiple books lamenting the destructive power of religious certainty in general and Islamism in particular.
There are admirable aspects to Harris’s work. I’ve found his meditations on free will and the nature of consciousness stimulating. And I share his conviction that unsparing criticism of repressive, antifeminist theologies should take precedence over concerns for multiculturalism.
Yet on questions of foreign policy, Harris’s thinking can become nearly as dogmatic and blinkered as that of the religious zealots he’s dedicated himself to discrediting.
This was especially apparent on a recent episode of his podcast titled “The Bright Line Between Good and Evil.” Over the course of an hour, Harris laid out his views on Israel and why its present war with Hamas must be understood as a battle between “savagery and civilization.”
The core contention of his audio essay was that neither the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict, nor the policies of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, is at all relevant for understanding why Hamas perpetrated atrocities on October 7. In Harris’s account, the terrorist group’s decision to launch an unprecedented attack against Israel didn’t derive from any earthly motivation, let alone from specific political grievances or national ambitions. Rather, Hamas is simply a jihadist organization, comprising individuals who wish to secure entry to eternal paradise by killing infidels. As Harris argues:
Now, there are many things to be said in criticism of Israel, in particular its expansion of settlements on contested land. But Israel’s behavior is not what explains the suicidal and genocidal inclinations of a group like Hamas. The Islamic doctrines of martyrdom and jihad do.
These are religious beliefs, sincerely held. They are beliefs about the moral structure of the universe. And they explain how normal people — even good ones — can commit horrific acts of violence against innocent civilians — on purpose, not as collateral damage — and still consider themselves good. When you believe that life in this world has no value, apart from deciding who goes to hell and who goes to Paradise, it becomes possible to feel perfectly at ease killing noncombatants, or even using your own women and children as human shields, because you know that any Muslims who get killed will go to Paradise for eternity.
If you don’t understand that jihadists sincerely believe these things, you don’t understand the problem Israel faces. The problem isn’t merely Palestinian nationalism, or resource competition, or any other normal terrestrial grievance. In fact, the problem isn’t even hatred, though there is enough of that to go around. The problem is religious certainty.
Ironically, Harris’s own position resembles religious fanaticism in its willful incuriosity. On Israel-Palestine, the celebrated atheist refuses to test the dogmatic tenets of a Manichaen worldview against either the historical record or present-day evidence. Instead of challenging his audience to grapple with the complex origins of the present war, he serves them a fairy tale in which the forces of “civilization” struggle against evildoers, whose malevolence derives from no political history or context but merely from their demonic possession by the mind-virus of jihad.
In saying this, I don’t mean to suggest that jihadist ideology played no role in Hamas’s actions. The inverse of Harris’s view is also misguided. Some on the left have suggested that October 7 was entirely determined by (a one-sided account of) the attack’s political and historical context. In this view, Hamas militants’ decision to murder 846 Israeli civilians — in some cases, after forcing them to witness the torture and execution of their family members — was a mechanical response to Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people. To various Harvard student groups, this orgy of sadistic violence was such an inevitable reaction to Israeli apartheid that Israel was “entirely responsible” for it.
Insisting that the downtrodden inevitably commit mass atrocities in response to oppression might help a putatively progressive Hamas apologist evade cognitive dissonance. After all, if October 7 was an inexorable consequence of Israel’s policies, then you can reconcile horror at its toll with your sect’s taboo against criticizing the oppressed. From this perspective, condemning Hamas for committing mass murder would be as pointless as condemning a knee for kicking back at a doctor’s plexor.
For actually understanding Hamas’s attack, however, such crude determinism is unhelpful. Atrocities of the scale and severity of October 7 are not inevitable features of resistance struggles; indeed, they are not even common features of them. Understanding why Palestinian militance took the peculiar form it did on October 7 requires more information than any list of Israeli crimes can proffer. And it is plausible that Hamas’s theocratic worldview — which includes a reverence for jihadist violence — informed the character of its assault on southern Israel.
Nevertheless, insisting that Hamas’s actions were caused exclusively by jihadism is at least as mindless as claiming that they were entirely determined by Palestinian subjugation.
Harris’s theory of Hamas’s terrorism makes sense if you know nothing about Hamas.
Harris’s case for why we can safely conclude that Hamas’s 30,000 members are entirely (and uniformly) motivated by a metaphysical desire for martyrdom, rather than concrete political grievances, is built on a single argument: Hamas is a self-described jihadist group, and jihadist groups frequently commit atrocities that have no coherent political aim. As Harris writes, “There have been nearly 50,000 acts of Islamic terrorism in the last 40 years … 90 percent of them have occurred in Muslim countries. Most have nothing to do with Israel or the Jews.” He notes that in 2014, “six jihadis affiliated with the Pakistani Taliban attacked a school in Peshawar,” murdering 132 children and burning a teacher alive in front of her students. They committed these horrors in the name of no earthly cause, and issued no set of demands. Their rationale for the atrocities was entirely religious.For Harris, the fact that some self-described jihadists have committed atrocities for purely metaphysical reasons means that no self-described jihadist could possibly be motivated primarily by political grievances. The fallacy here is so obvious that it’s hard to see how someone as intelligent as Harris could fail to recognize it. His logic is scarcely distinguishable from the statement “Stalin was an atheist, and committed violence in the name of socialism. Therefore, all atheists who commit violence are exclusively motivated by socialist ideology.” Clearly, it is possible for groups to share a broad worldview without having identical motives or commitments.
There is another obvious logical problem with Harris’s insistence that Hamas’s actions are explained by bad theology, and only bad theology: This stance cannot explain why these vile religious ideas acquire currency in one context but not in others. The Quran was not introduced to Palestine in 1987, the year Hamas was founded. So how can we explain why an extremist interpretation of that book came to prominence in a given region at a given time without reference to history or politics? Even if we stipulate (falsely) that Hamas’s ideology is as apolitical as Harris suggests, that would not prove that its outlook’s popularity in Palestine was unrelated to that nation’s political subjugation.
The primary problem with Harris’s monologue, however, isn’t logical but empirical. His rant betrays a total lack of interest in testing his theory of Hamas’s motives against actual evidence. He makes no reference to Hamas’s history — which is convenient, since it is very difficult to reconcile that history with the theory that the organization isn’t motivated by political grievances. Hamas took shape during the First Intifada, in response to the killing of four Palestinian day workers at a Gaza checkpoint. During its first year of existence, it submitted a request for negotiations to then–Israeli defense minister Yitzhak Rabin, and demanded an end to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands and the right of refugees from the 1948 war to return to their ancestral homes within Israel. The latter issue was of special importance to Hamas’s founder, Ahmed Yassin, who had been uprooted by Israel during the Nakba. After Israel rebuffed these demands, and killed more than 142 Gazans in the course of suppressing the Palestinian uprising, Hamas commenced its campaign to destroy Israel through terrorism.
Hamas’s ideology is plainly Islamist, violent, and antisemitic. And its founding charter declared that “There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through jihad.” But Hamas’s form of jihad has always been in service of a narrow, nationalistic project. Unlike Salafi groups such as Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, Hamas does not have a transnational project, nor is its brand of Sharia as extreme and thoroughgoing as that of ISIS. In fact, it has often found itself in conflict with Gaza’s smaller, more radical organizations.
None of this is meant to defend Hamas, let alone to justify its various crimes against humanity. It is only to say that (1) the organization was created to achieve terrestrial, political ends; (2) its embrace of violence was rooted less in metaphysical judgments than strategic ones; and (3) its brand of jihadism is idiosyncratic and distinct from that of the Salafi groups with whom Harris is most familiar.
This does not necessarily mean that ISIS and its brand of jihadism had no influence on the October 7 attackers. For one thing, some of the perpetrators were affiliated with groups even more extreme than Hamas. For another, it seems likely that at least some of the attackers were familiar with ISIS’s viral propaganda, including its myriad snuff videos glorifying spectacular violence. But Harris is making an incredibly strong claim — that Israeli behavior and Palestinian nationalism do not even partly explain Hamas’s violence, which is entirely attributable to religious extremism. And that claim is irreconcilable with even a cursory understanding of the group’s history.
When jihadists tell you who they are, believe them?
Harris is as willfully ignorant of Hamas’s present as he is with its past. He suggests that western academics who refuse to recognize that religious fanaticism (not vengeful nationalism) drives Hamas’s violence have their fingers in their ears. As he argues:The humanities and social science departments of every university are filled with scholars and pseudo-scholars — deemed to be experts in terrorism, religion, Islamic jurisprudence, anthropology, political science, and other fields — who claim that Muslim extremism is never what it seems. These experts insist that we can never take jihadists at their word and that none of their declarations about God, paradise, martyrdom, and the evils of apostasy have anything to do with their real motivations.
Yet when it comes to Hamas, it is Harris who refuses to take the jihadists at their word. The leader of Hamas’s military wing, Mohammed Deif, told the Associated Press that the October 7 attack “was in response to the 16-year blockade of Gaza, Israeli raids inside West Bank cities over the past year, violence at Al Aqsa — the disputed Jerusalem holy site sacred to Jews as the Temple Mount — increasing attacks by settlers on Palestinians and the growth of settlements.”
Another Hamas official, Basem Naim, told the Washington Post that “Jewish settler attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank and the storming of Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa Mosque by settlers” motivated October 7. Several other Hamas officials told the New York Times that they decided to launch an attack of unprecedented scale because they felt the Palestinian national cause was slipping away. Major Arab nations were seeking normalization with Israel, after decades of insisting that a two-state solution would be a precondition for such a rapprochement. Israel had not only ceased pursuing peace talks, but had ramped up its construction of illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, while using extralegal violence and housing regulations to force Palestinian families off their land. Hamas says that it found this status quo intolerable and aimed to upend it — and galvanize global attention to the Palestinian cause — through acts of spectacular violence.
It is possible that Hamas is lying. An organization willing to mass-murder children is surely willing to tell falsehoods. But Harris is the one arguing that we should take jihadists at their word — and yet he manifestly refuses to do so, or else, he did not bother to look up what Hamas’s stated rationale for its attack was.
You don’t need to be a jihadi to be a brutal terrorist in Israel-Palestine.
From Harris’s perspective, the only antecedents for October 7 are atrocities committed by other modern jihadist groups. Yet terroristic violence against civilians has been a feature of the Israel-Palestine conflict from the very beginning, and long before the popularization of jihadism in Palestine. And such violence has often been rooted in the mutual and contradictory nationalisms of the region’s Jews and Arabs, not Islamist metaphysics.The 1929 Hebron massacre, in which Palestinian mobs killed at least 67 Jews, was ostensibly motivated by religious grievance; the Palestinians were incited by rumors that Jews were about to seize control of the Temple Mount. But the power of these rumors derived from a broader, nationalist resistance to Zionism. Many militant Palestinian nationalists came to believe that they could beat back the tide of Jewish immigration — and secure Palestine against the threat of Zionist domination — by mass-murdering Jewish civilians until the intruders fled the region en masse. As Ian Black recounts in his history of the Israel-Palestine conflict, Rashid al-Haj Ibrahim, an Arab nationalist leader, warned a group of anti-Zionist activists in 1933 that “the Jews are advancing on all fronts.” Ibrahim continued:
They keep buying land, they bring in immigrants both legally and illegally … If we cannot demonstrate to them convincingly enough that all their efforts are in vain and that we are capable of destroying them at one stroke, then we shall have to lose our holy land or resign ourselves to being wretched second-class citizens in a Jewish state.
Asked how they could demonstrate the futility of the Zionist project, Ibrahim replied, “By doing what we did in 1929, but using more efficient methods.”
Yet a belief in both the morality and efficacy of terroristic violence was not exclusive to the conflict’s Arab side. Jewish terrorist organizations massacred Arab and British civilians, out of both retributive rage and political calculation.
During Israel’s War of Independence, meanwhile, Jewish militias committed a number of atrocities, including the infamous Deir Yassin massacre. Despite the fact that the Palestinian village of Deir Yassin had signed a peace pact with the region’s Jews, Israeli forces invaded the town and massacred at least 107 villagers, including women and children who were attempting to flee or surrender. There are credible reports that some villagers were mutilated and raped. Other captives were paraded through West Jerusalem, where they were jeered, stoned, and murdered.
This brutality had precisely the effect that Arab nationalists had aimed to achieve through terrorism, only in reverse: It enabled ethnic cleansing by terrifying Palestinians into fleeing their homes. As the Irgun commander Menachem Begin wrote, “The legend [of Deir Yassin] was worth half a dozen battalions to the forces of Israel.”
In more recent decades, secular Arab nationalists have upheld this binational tradition of terroristic violence. The Marxist-Leninist Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine massacred children on an Israeli school bus in 1970. Four years later, the group killed 25 people at an Israeli school, including 22 children, with grenades and automatic weapons.
All of this is to say, violence against civilians has been an endemic feature of the Israel-Palestine conflict. And in the course of that long struggle, atrocities not dissimilar to those of October 7 have been committed by secular nationalists, both Palestinian and Israeli.
Therefore, the notion that Hamas’s brutality derives entirely from the transhistorical evil of jihadist ideology — rather than the cycles of violence against civilians that have long plagued Israel-Palestine — rests on nothing but dubious speculation.
From one angle, whether Hamas’s terrorism is informed by political grievances and historical experience (as opposed to mere Islamist metaphysics) may look immaterial. Either way, one can reasonably argue that the group is committed to destroying Israel through the mass killing of Jews.
Yet there are real perils to substituting a Manichaean fairy tale for a clear-eyed understanding of the present war and its origins. By imagining Israel’s enemies as a death cult motivated by no earthly grievance, Harris suggests that Israel can only combat Palestinian extremism through military force. And yet, whatever becomes of Hamas after the present conflict, ideologies glorifying violent resistance — whether Islamist or secular — are liable to retain popularity among Palestinians, so long as Israel continues to frustrate their legitimate aspirations.
A consistent feature of public opinion in Palestine is that support for peace and a two-state solution tends to increase when the latter appears possible and diminish when Israel abandons negotiations. During the Oslo peace process of the 1990s, when a two-state solution looked like an imminent possibility, Palestinians supported negotiations over violent resistance by an 80 to 20 percent margin. This September, by contrast, as the most right-wing government in Israel’s history was expanding settlements in the West Bank, 54 percent of Palestinians told pollsters that they supported armed attacks against Israel. In one July poll, between 60 and 75 percent of Palestinians had a positive view of Islamic Jihad and the Lion’s Den, terrorist organizations even more extreme in their Islamism than Hamas.
There may be comfort in imagining that human beings who gleefully burn people alive cannot possibly be motivated by any legitimate, terrestrial grievance. To suggest otherwise can feel like apologetics for butchery. But this is a fallacy. To explain the causes of an atrocity is not to justify it. And blinding oneself to a subset of such causes can foreclose potential paths toward peace.
In the specific case of October 7, meanwhile, insisting that Palestinian terrorism is wholly unrelated to “Israel’s behavior” abets the most reactionary elements within Israeli politics. If Palestinian jihadist groups and their many sympathizers are principally motivated by a desire to slaughter their way to eternal paradise — rather than to achieve self-government and security here on earth — then Israel might be wiser to expel the Palestinians than honor their rights under international law. And many Israeli officials have entertained the idea of ethnically cleansing the Gaza Strip in recent weeks.
Further, Harris’s insistence on attributing Hamas’s violence entirely to apolitical motivations reflects a broader tendency to reduce the Israel-Palestine conflict into a simple, “good” versus “evil” binary. At one point in his monologue, Harris argues that “if the Palestinians put down their weapons, there would be peace; if the Israelis put down their weapons, there would be a genocide.” But this is only true in the most facile sense. In the West Bank, which is governed by a secular Palestinian Authority that cooperates with Israel, the Palestinians have largely abstained from terroristic resistance. Yet putting down their weapons has won them repression and dispossession by a Jewish supremacist settler movement, not peace. Of course, if Palestinians gamely submit to indefinite occupation, then there may be “peace” in some sense of the word. But it would not be the sort of peace that any Israeli would find tolerable were they put in the Palestinians’ position.
Religious fundamentalism is a blight on humanity. It leads people to prefer dogma to rational inquiry, and to imagine all intergroup conflicts as timeless struggles between good and evil, even in instances where both parties have legitimate grievances. But rejecting theology does not immunize one against close-minded certainty. Tribalism tugs at the human mind like gravity. It takes diligence to prevent one’s thoughts from slinking back toward sectarian pieties. The moment you believe that you’re immune to such dogmatism, you become vulnerable to it. One hazard of militant atheism then is that it can lead people to believe that they possess such immunity.
Harris surely thinks that his analysis of Israel and Hamas is grounded on pure reason. In reality, it rests on blind faith.
an interesting read..long but worth reading
A few thoughts from Bob.
Okay for interest sake i did a count of the last five pages.
Obviously some post are very short, some video's, or twitter post, some cut and paste
Roady= 49 love ya, dont post any less :D
Indo= 31
SR=29
Pop= 24
Adam= 17
Soggy= 9
Andy=9
Bas=9
Didnt bother with others with less post
Base 6
It is the religious friction that makes the ME a Hot spot .
However , this friction has been , sort of , dealt with many times before, during human history .
Muslim v Christian and even Christian v Christian ( Catholic v Protestant ) , Muslim v Muslim and Jew v Christian ( King Richard v Saladin was the Clash of Titans .
It can take way too long , but Religious Freedom, is achievable .
We have it .
The situation in Ireland has changed with religious friction from 50 years ago .
It's different geographically in this case, @Pop, when you have 'sides' that think every Temple, Rock, Dome, Hill and Wall is the ducks-nuts, and their exclusive Gateway to prophesised Salvation
Yes again .
Seems to be the Birth place for every religion known to man and woman .
Somehow , everyone , has to share it !
Someone will have to control THIS area .
A terrible job .
Perhaps, the Jews are the only one wanting the job to try and let everyone visit their sacred sites ?
All wars end , eventually ,
Edit
The UN couldn’t manage the area .
Their own Security Council has already too much friction .
@info says to Goofyfoot “ …. People like you are basically modern day fascist, all you do is try to shut down people who have views that dont align with your own, you seem to have become like Guy someone that only comment's in a thread with a comment aimed at me rather than the actual topic being discussed.…”.
After all these years and thousands of your posts you still don’t get it you fuckstained twoddle thinking knuckleheaded pea brained 1/2 witted imbecile.
Why on earth would any mildly intelligent sane person seriously engage you on any topic here?
Your “possible” “undiagnosed” autism is nolonger an excuse for being the meanest of mean spirited person you are here @info. You deserve every bit of abuse and more that comes your way.
Aah, good to see some healthy discussion and good to see there's still some beef and banter keeping us all entertained. I'm busy today so just dropped in with a bit of house keeping from yesterday.
@Indo, thanks for reading that and it's obvious to me you have thoughtfully considered it so good on you for that. It didn't change your mind by the looks of it so I tried but I failed. That's cool, as Gordon Lightfoot famously sang "Heroes often fail" (That 's a joke btw)
@Roadkill, yesterday you were making a point about the UN Charter of Human Rights and the people of Gaza and the Palestinians and I wanted to say something to you and forgot in my self amusement at the childish nicknames I was inventing for you and Indo at the time. What I wanted to tell you is not to confuse the existence of our universal human rights with their exercise. There are 8 billion of us on planet Earth and we all have those human rights you copied and pasted from the UN Charter, yet there are probably billions who don't get to exercise them. But they, like you and me and the women and gay people in Palestine still have all of those rights, and always will.
I first studied the ME in fifth form at school where we learned about the 1967 Arab Israeli war. That was in 1977, when I say "studied" that's probably a big stretch as I was 15 and more interested in getting to lunchtime and playing kick to kick than some bullshit war on the other side of the world.
Since then we've seen so many other wars, uprisings, intifadas, summits, failed peace accords, leaders coming and going, so many terrorist and political factions it's impossible to keep up with, war crimes committed, death and destruction It's just a fucking mess. I have no knowledge or expertise or even interest other than the 46 years of general knowledge acquired watching on mostly in disgust, confusion and like the last few months, horror. It seems to never end and never be capable of ending.
But something Indo was saying above rings true. If history tells us anything it is that these things can be resolved. That bitter, murderous enemy states can, with the right circumstances and the right leadership, overcome their enmity and become allies.
I have my own thoughts on how that could happen for the Jews and Arabs in the ME, a simpletons strategy for peace, something I've thought about occasionally over the 46 years of passing interest in this. If I get some time later I'll try to put it down in this thread. But for now I'll just leave a teaser, you would need a magic wand, to embrace the genius of George Costanza, a backing track from '70's R&B/soul/funk legends The O'Jays and some timeless wisdom from the Native American tribes, notably the great Lakota Sioux Chief Sitting Bull and that of the Nez Perce Chief Joseph.
It's probably worth noting that I have been inhaling petrol fumes for the past few hours so if I am making no sense there's a reason.
Have a good day boys.
My mind goes to another Costanza when reading Indo’s and Roadkills’ posts. Frank Costanza.
didn't read all of harris, but read rebuttal
all fair enough, ...but does bring a certain 'perspective'...
my take
hamas foot soldiers - harris
hamas leadership - harris rebuttal
(and that's why the gutless fucks are living as millionaires in qater)
together - terrorists
'never negotiate with terrorists'
vj's nugget of 'truth' from way back on about page 2...
'...doesn't matter how much you dismiss the many religion's and their imaginary holy man in the sky... all actors are acting under the influence of their holy man - book...'
or words to that effect...
.@daliaziada is Director of a Middle East think tank and author of a book on Islamists. Listen to her explain to you the core of this Israel vs Hamas war and how it is about something much bigger than a land claim-and how you, in the west, are involved.https://t.co/cBi3GmOMAb pic.twitter.com/ewRHE9C7dW
— Yasmine Mohammed 🦋 ياسمين محمد (@YasMohammedxx) December 18, 2023
funny some of the oddballs on twitter claiming hamas is winning this war...
not funny, but strange
(maybe not that strange)
Fayez al-Dwairi is the top war commentator of the Al Jazeera news channel, who has become a phenomenon in the Arab world…he tells the Arab world every day that the IDF is being destroyed and that Hamas is winning in Gaza, wait until you hear how many IDF soldiers Hamas killed… pic.twitter.com/w2SwY3Bx6R
— יוסף חדאד - Yoseph Haddad (@YosephHaddad) January 1, 2024
this is funny...
If this man stood for Prime Minister I’d definitely vote for him ‼️👊🇬🇧 https://t.co/uynDKNvN3m
— Owdham lad (Johnny) (@OwdhamL) December 26, 2023
Denmark:
— Azat (@AzatAlsalim) December 26, 2023
“We have 5 children and you 1 or 2. In 10 years there will be more Pakis(MusIims) than Danes here”
“There are only 5 million Danes. You will soon be exterminated”
pic.twitter.com/Tg6Nyn9pef
haven't checked the numbers (or stalked the profile)
but, an interesting graph
perspective...
sypkan wrote:funny some of the oddballs on twitter claiming hamas is winning this war...
not funny, but strange
(maybe not that strange)
He s feeling pretty safe. Palestinian journalists not so much
https://www.bing.com/fd/ls/GLinkPing.aspx?IG=165763F19598444BA9243218F0E...
Not enough that she was dead.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-14/israeli-police-clash-with-palesti...
sypkan wrote:https://twitter.com/YasMohammedxx/status/1736885405763445193
What a women, what id give to give her my friendly bump in the Dandy market to strike up a conversation, even if its just a Hijab she is wearing :D
But seriously she is spot on.
People might think but how can she say this clearly as a muslim women, but there quite literally is a hundreds shades of Islam/muslims like there is Christianity/Christians, she and millions of others are at one end, Hamas and ISIS and others at the other end.
sypkan wrote:funny some of the oddballs on twitter claiming hamas is winning this war...
not funny, but strange
(maybe not that strange)
Hamas is responsible for the deaths….wtf. But but but but wait until burleigh, adam12, andybutbutbut, soggybiscuit, jellybrain, SR, et al hear this. I look forward to them discrediting this guy.
Deaths are the fault of the IDF according to those renowned SN military geniuses.
Roadkill wrote:sypkan wrote:funny some of the oddballs on twitter claiming hamas is winning this war...
not funny, but strange
(maybe not that strange)
Hamas is responsible for the deaths….wtf. But but but but wait until burleigh, adam12, andybutbutbut, soggybiscuit, jellybrain, SR, et al hear this. I look forward to them discrediting this guy.
Deaths are the fault of the IDF according to those renowned SN military geniuses.
Guns don’t kill people……..rappers do. I saw it on the TV, I saw it on the news
sypkan wrote:funny some of the oddballs on twitter claiming hamas is winning this war...
not funny, but strange
(maybe not that strange)
Someone telling the facts…funny how the al-Dwairi clown increases the IDF casualties and we all know that is complete BS, yet the same clowns say the Gaza death toll, which is also a made up exaggeration, and the figure is never questioned, just reposted as fact by gullible people.
sypkan wrote:funny some of the oddballs on twitter claiming hamas is winning this war...
not funny, but strange
(maybe not that strange)
Quite a few sources are saying the North now is pretty much done, only one battalion said to be standing (i think there was 12 originally in the North)
That doesn't mean there still aren't Hamas there though or all areas cleared or fighting wont erupt again if hamas move back in and they say it will take months to clear all tunnels etc, but still clear progress being made, and seems the focus now is really moving south.
Few interesting videos around today more interesting than covers suggest
&t=185sUse of dogs in missions in this one is interesting .
Roadkill wrote:sypkan wrote:funny some of the oddballs on twitter claiming hamas is winning this war...
not funny, but strange
(maybe not that strange)
Hamas is responsible for the deaths….wtf. But but but but wait until burleigh, adam12, andybutbutbut, soggybiscuit, jellybrain, SR, et al hear this. I look forward to them discrediting this guy.
Deaths are the fault of the IDF according to those renowned SN military geniuses.
Yep good source there mate, an Israeli journo embedded with IDF.... Pfft
Least he can probably feel safe he won't be taken out by a sniper.
Re death figures on Gazan civilian life. Some agencies reporting figure is very much under real figures as bodies still remaining under rubble are not being reported as death. So 20-30000 mainly women and kids dead are ok with you as long as the goodies are winning their fight against the evil wicked lesser humans. Yeah ha giddy up soldier!!
Israel's goal for this war to be won is total elimination of Hamas, yeah good luck with that.
I have sickening feeling that this is just beginning reminding me of GW Bush declaring mission accomplished in Iraq and we know how that went.
andy-mac wrote:Roadkill wrote:sypkan wrote:funny some of the oddballs on twitter claiming hamas is winning this war...
not funny, but strange
(maybe not that strange)
Hamas is responsible for the deaths….wtf. But but but but wait until burleigh, adam12, andybutbutbut, soggybiscuit, jellybrain, SR, et al hear this. I look forward to them discrediting this guy.
Deaths are the fault of the IDF according to those renowned SN military geniuses.Yep good source there mate, an Israeli journo embedded with IDF.... Pfft
Least he can probably feel safe he won't be taken out by a sniper.
Re death figures on Gazan civilian life. Some agencies reporting figure is very much under real figures as bodies still remaining under rubble are not being reported as death. So 20-30000 mainly women and kids dead are ok with you as long as the goodies are winning their fight against the evil wicked lesser humans. Yeah ha giddy up soldier!!Israel's goal for this war to be won is total elimination of Hamas, yeah good luck with that.
I have sickening feeling that this is just beginning reminding me of GW Bush declaring mission accomplished in Iraq and we know how that went.
Deaths are not ok with me however Hamas and a very large portion of Gaza Palestinians are responsible, not the IDF.
sypkan wrote:https://twitter.com/AzzatAlsaalem/status/1739603389053370496
Yep..open your doors to help and the repayment is coming.
soggydog wrote:Roadkill wrote:sypkan wrote:funny some of the oddballs on twitter claiming hamas is winning this war...
not funny, but strange
(maybe not that strange)
Hamas is responsible for the deaths….wtf. But but but but wait until burleigh, adam12, andybutbutbut, soggybiscuit, jellybrain, SR, et al hear this. I look forward to them discrediting this guy.
Deaths are the fault of the IDF according to those renowned SN military geniuses.Guns don’t kill people……..rappers do. I saw it on the TV, I saw it on the news
?si=jOJHBty38M-OtLwn
Soggybiscuit, seriously, you don’t even know what social media is. As if anything you say/post has merit.
andy-mac wrote:Roadkill wrote:sypkan wrote:funny some of the oddballs on twitter claiming hamas is winning this war...
not funny, but strange
(maybe not that strange)
Hamas is responsible for the deaths….wtf. But but but but wait until burleigh, adam12, andybutbutbut, soggybiscuit, jellybrain, SR, et al hear this. I look forward to them discrediting this guy.
Deaths are the fault of the IDF according to those renowned SN military geniuses.Yep good source there mate, an Israeli journo embedded with IDF.... Pfft
Least he can probably feel safe he won't be taken out by a sniper.
Re death figures on Gazan civilian life. Some agencies reporting figure is very much under real figures as bodies still remaining under rubble are not being reported as death. So 20-30000 mainly women and kids dead are ok with you as long as the goodies are winning their fight against the evil wicked lesser humans. Yeah ha giddy up soldier!!Israel's goal for this war to be won is total elimination of Hamas, yeah good luck with that.
I have sickening feeling that this is just beginning reminding me of GW Bush declaring mission accomplished in Iraq and we know how that went.
No one thinks Hamas will be destroyed. It’s impossible to destroy them. Israel knows they won’t eliminate Hamas. It’s not even an outcome worth promoting, it is a valid reason that the IDF can use as they eliminate as many of them and their supporters and their networks and their infrastructure. It is nothing more than a convenient headline.
I find it hilarious that the dill bags JF for you tube videos then posts you tube videos, then bags adam 12 for using twitter as a source but cheers twitter if the source suits him . Then calls others hypocritical, very entertaining stuff. Long live the dill.
Roadkill wrote:andy-mac wrote:Roadkill wrote:sypkan wrote:funny some of the oddballs on twitter claiming hamas is winning this war...
not funny, but strange
(maybe not that strange)
Hamas is responsible for the deaths….wtf. But but but but wait until burleigh, adam12, andybutbutbut, soggybiscuit, jellybrain, SR, et al hear this. I look forward to them discrediting this guy.
Deaths are the fault of the IDF according to those renowned SN military geniuses.Yep good source there mate, an Israeli journo embedded with IDF.... Pfft
Least he can probably feel safe he won't be taken out by a sniper.
Re death figures on Gazan civilian life. Some agencies reporting figure is very much under real figures as bodies still remaining under rubble are not being reported as death. So 20-30000 mainly women and kids dead are ok with you as long as the goodies are winning their fight against the evil wicked lesser humans. Yeah ha giddy up soldier!!Israel's goal for this war to be won is total elimination of Hamas, yeah good luck with that.
I have sickening feeling that this is just beginning reminding me of GW Bush declaring mission accomplished in Iraq and we know how that went.
No one thinks Hamas will be destroyed. It’s impossible to destroy them. Israel knows they won’t eliminate Hamas. It’s not even an outcome worth promoting, it is a valid reason that the IDF can use as they eliminate as many of them and their supporters and their networks and their infrastructure. It is nothing more than a convenient headline.
If they know Hamas cannot be destroyed, what is their goal with this continual killing of innocents to get a small % of Hamas fighters?
It is no longer defence in any stretch of the imagination.
Revenge?
Genocide?
Honestly how does this end?
And how is it helping Israel or Israeli's now?
Roadkill wrote:andy-mac wrote:Roadkill wrote:sypkan wrote:funny some of the oddballs on twitter claiming hamas is winning this war...
not funny, but strange
(maybe not that strange)
Hamas is responsible for the deaths….wtf. But but but but wait until burleigh, adam12, andybutbutbut, soggybiscuit, jellybrain, SR, et al hear this. I look forward to them discrediting this guy.
Deaths are the fault of the IDF according to those renowned SN military geniuses.Yep good source there mate, an Israeli journo embedded with IDF.... Pfft
Least he can probably feel safe he won't be taken out by a sniper.
Re death figures on Gazan civilian life. Some agencies reporting figure is very much under real figures as bodies still remaining under rubble are not being reported as death. So 20-30000 mainly women and kids dead are ok with you as long as the goodies are winning their fight against the evil wicked lesser humans. Yeah ha giddy up soldier!!Israel's goal for this war to be won is total elimination of Hamas, yeah good luck with that.
I have sickening feeling that this is just beginning reminding me of GW Bush declaring mission accomplished in Iraq and we know how that went.
No one thinks Hamas will be destroyed. It’s impossible to destroy them. Israel knows they won’t eliminate Hamas. It’s not even an outcome worth promoting, it is a valid reason that the IDF can use as they eliminate as many of them and their supporters and their networks and their infrastructure. It is nothing more than a convenient headline.
Bit of an own goal there young fella. You’re given this debatin ‘ thing a fair crack though. Solid 12 hours Sunday, few yesterday. Putting in a few today? All revved up and ready to go?
Because the world would be a better place if leaders only listened to Swellnet commenters, we've created a forum that makes it easy for them to gather our thoughts.
Today's shit talk is tomorrow's policy.