Many of us have strong opinions on the issues here. It's good to read where other people's minds reside. I like to understand why people that I think are wrong stand where they do. Lets try to keep in mind that This IS the Internet and you/we are not likely to change anyones mind even with our favorite facts. Mostly I need to read and not post in 'these' discussion. Share, but don't argue?
I want to say that I am shocked at the massive outpouring of antisemitism we have seen the last few weeks. Many of these same groups and people that were calling others "nazis" are, themselves, acting more like nazis than any group since 1945. I am ashamed, not for us, our country but for humanity as a whole. Maybe it is time for Big Meteor '24 to correct our problems because we can't seem to.
Duke said:bobzilla said:In reply to Duke :
Fine. Let's blame Israel for all the ills in the Middle East.
sorry they earned what they're getting and more. Blame Israel all you want, they didn't ask for thousands to be slaughtered.
Neither did the Palestinians. They certainly didn't ask to be ousted from their homes in Old City Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, or the West Bank. Israeli occupation of non-Israeli territory grew by more than 600,000 people between 1970 and 2020. But of course, Israel is the utterly blameless victim here, right? They didn't have anything at all to do with why the Muslims just seem to mysteriously hate them for absolutely no reason, right?! Is that what you're saying? It sure sounds like it, but I wouldn't want to get that wrong, or anything.
But thanks for grossly overstating my point. Please feel free to continue misinterpreting it.
Fine, lets make this simple: Do you support the attack as justified? Yes or no.
The problems with muslims and jews has been happening for literally centuries. You can go back as far as you want to and find issues between them. I've never said Israel nor the "west" had nothing to do with the last 70 years of problems but it goes back further than that and at this point has become an ingrained behavior between them.
Population growth is everywhere. Since 1960 the US population has doubled, from 179million to 331million. Israel's population has literally tripled since 1960. From just over 2 million to just shy of 10 million. People have to go somewhere and the corner of land they sit on isn't exactly large, about the size and density of population as New Jersey.
But does population growth make genocide acceptable? Murdering women, children and eldery ok because of it?
As has been said here before multiple times, no one involved in this is blame free. But there is no excuse for this behavior. No excuse for taking aid and making war material. To stopping aid trucks from reaching their own civilians. To blocking civilian traffic to keep their human shields for the attacks that they brought on. That's the behavior of a rabid animal.
In reply to bobzilla :
I've said my piece. Any further reply I make is going to become a long tirade against nearly all forms of religion in general, and religious extremism in particular.
This isn't the place for that, so I won't do it.
In reply to Duke :
Yes or no was pretty easy I thought.
bobzilla said:In reply to Duke :
Yes or no was pretty easy I thought.
Then you are paying lip service to the history of the region, but either not understanding it or refusing to acknowledge it.
In reply to Duke :
Then I guess I misjudged who I thought you were. There is no way any reasonable person could ever find that attack as a justifiable action. IT's despicable, immoral and just absolutely berkeleying terrible, and the people that can justify that are as well. Period. Full stop. There is NO excuse. No amount of what-about-isms can ever cover that no matter how hard you try.
We agreed in the beginning to keep religious debates out of it. So let's please. Or in the words of the CoC:
Don't.
Don't.
Don't.
In reply to volvoclearinghouse :
There is nothing religious in anything I've posted. At this point just sadness and disappointment in us.
So.... maybe moving on a bit here. Although, clearly this topic creates heated discussions. I think that is mostly because there really is no easy answer, and maybe (likely?) no real answer at all.
It looks like the Israelis have evacuated villages near the border with Lebanon and have burnt much of the brush in the areas. The border area is a hilly, somewhat rural area and any attempt for Hezbollah to do over the border raids (I don't think a true invasion is really a possibility) is obviously a concern.
Two more hostages (older women) where released. They described being held underground in a maze of tunnels, which does not bode well for the Israelis. This of course means that if they want to get the hostages, they have to go into the tunnels, which is clearly a nightmare. One objective, I am sure, is to destroy the tunnel network, which they can do without going into them, but the hostages are there.
I would call the situation, and the plan to move in, still very uncertain. Unless there is a high tech way (possible?) to locate all these tunnels and the people in them without going into them.... I have no idea how they will pull this off. If they consider the hostages sacrificed already (they have no real chance of surviving whatever happens) then.... and perhaps this is why hostages are leaking out?
Israel shows 40 min compilation of the raiders (and other) videos (many where wearing body cams to capture their deeds, which they were obviously very proud of) to the media. As can be imagined (or not really hopefully) it is reportedly horrific. I do think it is important to show these sorts of things (and obviously, things Israel has done) so people don't loose track of what the reality is.
The level that people can sink to, even in the "modern" world, can sometimes be rather shocking. Plenty of examples in Ukraine also, so it's not just as a result of religion (although, clearly a useful tool).
bobzilla said:In reply to Duke :
Then I guess I misjudged who I thought you were. There is no way any reasonable person could ever find that attack as a justifiable action.
I never said I found it justifiable.
I said I found it understandable.
Those are not the same.
bobzilla said:I want to say that I am shocked at the massive outpouring of antisemitism we have seen the last few weeks. Many of these same groups and people that were calling others "nazis" are, themselves, acting more like nazis than any group since 1945. I am ashamed, not for us, our country but for humanity as a whole. Maybe it is time for Big Meteor '24 to correct our problems because we can't seem to.
Funny, I just saw a faded "Big Meteor '20" bumper sticker on a car yesterday. It had been a while since I'd heard that.
In reply to volvoclearinghouse :
I think that's going to be my write in candidate again.
Reading up on the history of the foundation of the modern state of Israel.
Holy crap is that a giant mess. I'm no dummy, but this is a tough one to wrap my head around. We have some seriously legitimately aggrieved parties here.
We've got all the mess of antisemitism first in Russia and then Germany, which caused a bunch of Jews to flee to Palestine. Then they faced antisemitism from the Arabs there as well as the British colonial power that held the region at the time. The increasing tension leads the European powers to basically say, "If you all can't get along as neighbors, we're going to just cut the area in half (but not neatly) and tell everyone to stick to their side of this really weird line." People got angrier. People have remained angry.
Holy crap. I look at the modern map and wonder how the hell it would even be possible to untangle this. The only way I can imagine would be if everyone could agree to separate nations, but with open borders and free crossing to live wherever - kinda like the EU. But THAT is not going to happen anytime soon. That would probably take all of the legitimately aggrieved Arabs in Palestine to all agree to set aside their anger and just be chill about the E36 M3 sandwich they've been forced to eat for about two generations in order for Israel to back off its position of high-alert.
Is there something big that I am missing?
bobzilla said:I want to say that I am shocked at the massive outpouring of antisemitism we have seen the last few weeks. Many of these same groups and people that were calling others "nazis" are, themselves, acting more like nazis than any group since 1945. I am ashamed, not for us, our country but for humanity as a whole. Maybe it is time for Big Meteor '24 to correct our problems because we can't seem to.
I was really hoping to stay out of this thread, but goddammit, being against Israel is NOT being anti Semitic. And frankly the Israeli government pulling the anti-Semitism card every single time anyone criticizes the things they do, whether it's slaughtering Palestinian civilians, funding terrorists in other countries, or guilt tripping other nations into taking refugees while refusing to open their own borders is a berkeleying copout.
There is NO good guy in this situation, but if we really want to look at the numbers just since the year 2000, it's been a rather one sided conflict.
Both sides slaughter civilians, both sides use human shields, both sides are fully guilty and complicit in war crimes. Of course, as Americans, we know all too well that certain sides of any conflict can commit war crimes and slaughter civilians with no repercussions while the other side is demonized, because there always has to be a "good"side and a "bad" side, and somehow we're always on the "good" side despite our actions.
In reply to Duke :
I'm looking harder at your maps, and trying to figure out a couple things. I am absolutely no authority on the region, but I have been there.
What I am trying to figure out is if you have any knowledge of the disputed areas on the maps, or are they just lines on a page to you? I hear you saying that you see Israel as having been involved in massive expansionism, and that you are not a fan. Is this position based on lines on a map, or do you have deeper knowledge of it?
I'm not taking a side. I'm really just interested in learning the basis for your position.
I don't have deep knowledge of this. But I thought the Negev was mostly quite worthless desert, and the region around Jerusalem (including Hebron, Bethlehem, etc) to be by far the most important and religiously significant area in the entire world to Israel (and others).
That earlier map looks like a political redistricting map. It may have given Israel ownership of some stuff, but did it have any value? Was it designed as an appeasement that denied Israel the things that were lost important to them, while giving them worthless wasteland?
I don't actually know. And I am not offering that as justification for expansion. Only a possible explanation that may be more understandable.
I'm just trying to learn.
In reply to Beer Baron :
I think the only big thing you missed is that the Jews originated in what was eventually called Palestine, and were driven out.
In reply to Beer Baron :
Nope, that pretty much covers it. Buncha different groups fighting over the same patch of holy ground that's been hotly contested for millennia.
I cannot recall the last time I saw the value of babies lives getting thrown around in an argument that actually placed more value on the lives of the babies than on their value to the position being defended. The arguments inevitably seem to cherry pick certain babies lives as being inherently more valuable than others, based on the biases and narratives of those making the argument. Apparently babies killed with bullets and buried in a graveyard are more valuable than babies killed by bombs and buried in rubble, babies born on one side of an imaginary line are more valuable than babies born on the other, babies killed by 1st degree murder (terrorism) are more valuable than babies killed by 2nd degree murder and manslaughter ('collateral damage'), etc.
It makes me wonder if there is even a limit to how many times more Palestinian babies killed by Israel than Israeli babies killed by HAMAS that will ever be 'too many' to justify?
In reply to Duke :
I get that also sometimes. When trying to understand / explain someone's reasoning / motivations, it can be confused with agreeing with it. E.g. I am trying to explain WHY they do it, NOT justify it is "right" or "good".
In reply to aircooled :
It gets even more complicated. There were the Philistines in that region earlier, and those were mostly driven out/ exterminated. The Greek term for the region the Philistines were in was something close to 'Palestine', and so they two got conflated, and to some extent, they still are. The Philistines have some definite Biblical baggage attached to them, as they were enemies of the Israelites. For example, the story of David and Goliath called Goliath a Philistine. But, as you point out, the Jews were later driven out of the area.
Modern Palestinians seem to have very little connection to the Philistines.
SV reX and I have both noticed that the maps of the area resemble some sort of gerrymandered political district. It could be that at least part of the problem lies with having 3rd parties carve up the land to give to two groups of people. We all know how much of an issue gerrymandering is in the US.
One thing I'm having trouble reconciling is how much of a surprise the attacks were. HAMAS had to be years in the planning and training up for this. If there was no one paying attention to whatever "red flags" were waving, because an operation of this magnitude by any one much less HAMAS doesn't just happen (of course hindsight is often 20/20), then Israeli intelligence really dropped the ball here. I won't put on my tinfoil hat any further, but I do wonder how the signs were missed.
In reply to volvoclearinghouse :
Yeah, the 1947 UNGA Partition Plan looks downright ridiculous, and impossible for Israel to live by. But they had to accept something, or they would literally have nothing other than living as nomads forever in someone else's country.
In reply to RevRico :
I see no one here saying either side is good. I DO see multiple times people saying there is no winning nor good here.
I AM seein true anti-semitism across the US and globe. Not just "not for israel". True, kill all the jews theres no place in this world those that survice should be locked up anti-semitism. I see a cowardly attack on an unsuspecting civilian population. I do see "death to zionists". I don't see "death to palestinians".
Seriously the ME has been a berkeleyed up mess for millenia and nothing we are going to do today is going to fix that. Some of it is just ingrained and there are too many caught up in it teaching nothing but hate to stop it anytime soon.
06HHR (Forum Supporter) said:One thing I'm having trouble reconciling is how much of a surprise the attacks were. HAMAS had to be years in the planning and training up for this. If there was no one paying attention to whatever "red flags" were waving, because an operation of this magnitude by any one much less HAMAS doesn't just happen (of course hindsight is often 20/20), then Israeli intelligence really dropped the ball here. I won't put on my tinfoil hat any further, but I do wonder how the signs were missed.
Part of the problem is there had been relative peace in the area for the last 2 years. Israel and other nations had been working and providing supplies and support to the strip to aid in their growth and recovery. What was happening behind the scenes was they were plotting, training and preparing for all out war. Likely prodded by the Iranians. Iran has used Palestine and Hamas as pawns in their sick game for decades.
You'll need to log in to post.
