Hamas attacks Israel with kit rockets and AK47's... US sends aircraft carrier in support.

[Sensei]

1 hour ago, mistermack said:

Well, I was claiming that the longer you are fed a message, the more indoctrinated you become. If it didn't work, they wouldn't do it. But it's a numbers game, it's not going to work on everyone, but enough people soak it up to make it worthwhile. 

You know the game from a first person perspective.. ?

 

 

 

1 hour ago, mistermack said:

And the second big message is that multiculturalism = good. Virtually every commercial on tv presents a beautiful and happy and successful mixed-race couple, even though the actual incidence of mixed race couples is very very low. Also, news programs and drama seem to have an obligatory stock of multi-ethnic representation, with a good dose of women and disabled stirred in for good measure. I don't mind the actual message, I just object to being force-fed it. 

..what happened to the buttons on the remote control.. ?

 

 

1 hour ago, mistermack said:

In the current political situation in this country, it's getting harder and harder to voice a criticism of Israel. There has been for at least the last ten years a concentrated program of portraying anti Israel sentiment as anti-semitism. It's not accidental. It goes on behind the scenes. 

..I just did this.. in my previous post..

 

1 hour ago, mistermack said:

I don't know who is pulling the strings behind the scenes, but over time, they get what they want, and they didn't have to stand for election to do it.  

..aren't we talking.. ?

 

[dimreepr]

On 10/27/2023 at 7:37 PM, Sensei said:

You know the game from a first person perspective.. ?

That's the problem, WE don't; whatever age and whatever wisdom, a child from a war zone will know more about war than the greatest peacetime philosopher.

I'm a pacifist, but when I drill down to the core of this problem, I'm struggling to think of a reason, why it's not a reasonable excuse... 

Hamas has no interest in making peace and it's their choice to throw their families under the bus, in order to win a million to one bet. 

They're a desperate gambling addict that should've been stopped (oops, from the house) before they spent their families wage.

 

[StringJunky]

2 hours ago, dimreepr said:

That's the problem, WE don't; whatever age and whatever wisdom, a child from a war zone will know more about war than the greatest peacetime philosopher.

I'm a pacifist, but when I drill down to the core of this problem, I'm struggling to think of a reason, why it's not a reasonable excuse... 

Hamas has no interest in making peace and it's their choice to throw their families under the bus, in order to win a million to one bet. 

They're a desperate gambling addict that should've been stopped (oops, from the house) before they spent their families wage.

 

Let's not forget why Hamas and Hezbollah, and anti-Zionists existed in the first place.... All the West is doing is doubling down on its erroneous commitment, after half a century  of political machinations from the original Zionists in the pursuit of the creation, and subsequent preservation of a myth called 'Israel'.

'.

Edited October 29, 2023 by StringJunky

[John Cuthber]

I wonder if people engaged in this know what the death tolls on each side look like.
This may clarify it
(It obviously only includes civilians)
https://countingthekids.org/?fbclid=IwAR0rsRw5R5C0yBNhvKy7_eHdasFiJpkJ0J1L85h8BIKvkKgHyhzLgI2py-4

[StringJunky]

The Nakba of 1947 should be spoken of with the same contempt as the Holocaust. The Palestinians are ultimately innocent, and are historical casualties of the machinations between the west and the Zionists to impose a new Torahnic culture on their land. Is this an unreasonable interpretation?

Edited October 29, 2023 by StringJunky

[zapatos]

36 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

The Palestinians are ultimately innocent

I'm no fan of Israel in this conflict but given recent events I'm not sure "innocent" should be used when describing the militant wing of the Palestinians. Perhaps it might be more reasonable to say that the Palestinians didn't start this dumpster fire...

Edited October 29, 2023 by zapatos

[iNow]

44 minutes ago, zapatos said:

I'm no fan of Israel in this conflict but given recent events I'm not sure "innocent" should be used when describing the militant wing of the Palestinians. Perhaps it might be more reasonable to say that the Palestinians didn't start this dumpster fire...

A point to potentially reflect upon is that too many right now are conflating Hamas with Palestinians, and that’s no more valid than conflating Iraqis with ISIS. The children dying right now didn’t vote for Hamas 16 years ago, nor has anybody living there the last decade plus. 

[MigL]

47 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

The Nakba of 1947 should be spoken of with the same contempt as the Holocaust. The Palestinians are ultimately innocent, and are historical casualties of the machinations between the west and the Zionists to impose a new Torahnic culture on their land. Is this an unreasonable interpretation?

The 'Nakba' occurred in 1948, when, on the day following the creation of the state of Israel, all of its Arab neighbors attacked it; look it up.
Palestinians and Jews had been co-existing on those lands since at least 1917, as per the British mandate, without any mass exodus.
So what do you think caused the displacement of Palestinians in 1948 ??

Need I remind you that Jews and Palestinians have lived together on those lands since about 750 CE; before that time there were mostly Jews on those lands, and about 500 years earlier that area was called Judea under Roman rule.

Israel and Jews can be unreasonable at times, but to compare the mass extermination of 6 Million of them to the displacement of Palestinians as Israel was at war and being being attacked from all sides by Arab neighbors is more than a little over the top.

Hamas is the legally elected government of the Gaza strip. A 'government' whose sole purpose is not to govern the people, provide food shelter and medication, nor to protect its people.
Its purpose is the total destruction of the state of Israel, and to use its people as human shields ( have you seen the videos of their hiding locations ? )
That the Palestinian people choose such a government speaks volumes about their complicity.
Or to put it another way, even if someone stole your house and kicked you out of it, would you burn his baby , rape his wife after breaking her legs, chop his head off with a garden hoe and take his mother hostage ???

Seems young people ( students ) and most posters on this topic, prefer to consider only 'colonial-settler' ideologies and never mind the actual facts.

[iNow]

1 minute ago, MigL said:

That the Palestinian people choose such a government speaks volumes about their complicity.

That election was very long ago. Don’t blame the children for the mistakes of the parent. 

Hamas does need to be eradicated, but the Palestinian people are not Hamas. 

[TheVat]

29 minutes ago, iNow said:

That election was very long ago. Don’t blame the children for the mistakes of the parent. 

Hamas does need to be eradicated, but the Palestinian people are not Hamas. 

I think these equations of Hamas and ordinary Palestinians are typical of political rhetoric where the purpose is to draw attention away from Geneva Convention violations, as in this case the indiscriminate killing of civilians, starvation tactics, and destruction of non military targets like homes.  The same rhetoric was used in WW2 to justify Dresden and Hiroshima.  Nazis bad, we can kill Germans with impunity.  Japanese bad, we can nuke a whole city or two.  

 It's interesting how most people can look back at those events and condemn them, or condemn the US brutal slaughter of indigenous tribal peoples, but somehow Israel gets a special pass and anyone who questions their conduct of war or occupation is pelted with ad hominems like being an antisemite.

It doesn't take a moral philosopher to understand two wrongs don't make a right.

 

53 minutes ago, MigL said:

Or to put it another way, even if someone stole your house and kicked you out of it, would you burn his baby , rape his wife after breaking her legs, chop his head off with a garden hoe and take his mother hostage ???

If someone had stolen my house and plowed the olive groves that five generations of my family had farmed, and did that to thousands of others around me, and drove me into a fetid slum I could not leave and which is subjected to mass murder attacks every decade or so, I might be easy prey to a political party that promised to get tough with my attackers and get my land back, and would probably not really grasp I was voting for a gang full of vicious sociopaths with a very stupid approach to negotiation .

So tired of nuance-free discussions around the web where people seem to think Hamas just popped in out of nowhere and announced with a gleeful cackle, "Let's be evil and kill some innocent Jews!"  Hamas and PIJ were created by the series of forcings and swindles that started with a letter written by Arthur Balfour.  Was Balfour naive or foolishly optimistic or just having a feel-good moment with Britain's Jewish community?  Maybe someone more knowledgeable of that history could say.

[MigL]

4 hours ago, TheVat said:

So tired of nuance-free discussions around the web where people seem to think Hamas just popped in out of nowhere and announced with a gleeful cackle, "Let's be evil and kill some innocent Jews!"

Actually, they did !

"In the 1980s the Brotherhood emerged as a powerful political factor, challenging the influence of the PLO,^[5] and in 1987 adopted a more nationalist and activist line under the name of Hamas.^[5] During the 1990s and early 2000s, the organization conducted numerous suicide bombings and other attacks against Israel.

In the Palestinian legislative election of January 2006, Hamas gained a large majority of seats in the Palestinian Parliament, defeating the ruling Fatah party. After the elections, conflicts arose between Hamas and Fatah, which they were unable to resolve.^[8][9][10] In June 2007, Hamas defeated Fatah in a series of violent clashes"

From     History of Hamas - Wikipedia

Seems they resolve most of their issues with violence.
Nuanced enough for you ?

Edited October 30, 2023 by MigL

[dimreepr]

18 hours ago, StringJunky said:

Let's not forget why Hamas and Hezbollah, and anti-Zionists existed in the first place.... All the West is doing is doubling down on its erroneous commitment, after half a century  of political machinations from the original Zionists in the pursuit of the creation, and subsequent preservation of a myth called 'Israel'.

'.

I appreciate that, but it's happened and we can't put the cork back in.

But Hamas et al don't want peace, they want revenge for a crime committed by mostly dead people, a futile wish however justified.

Attacking Israel now is like poking a hornet's nest, because one of the little bastards, from a different nest, once stung me; all Hamas has achieved is giving the Israeli war machine a justifiable excuse to eradicate hornet's from any nest. 

I think the best solution for all the innocent babies in this conflict, Israel and the west should annex Gaza and give them all the benefits of the state, rather than try to starve them into submitting.

[TheVat]

11 hours ago, MigL said:

Seems they resolve most of their issues with violence.

Nuanced enough for you ?

The nuance I'm missing is that both sides resolve their issues with violence, and the reasons why each feels bloodshed is the only viable option.  

Edited October 30, 2023 by TheVat
making Migs question visible in box

[MigL]

18 minutes ago, TheVat said:

The nuance I'm missing is that both sides resolve their issues with violence, and the reasons why each feels bloodshed is the only viable option.  

I guess I'm missing it too ...
There are Palestinians and other Arabs living and working in Israel, some even in Government institutions.
They seem prosperous and happy.

How long do you think an Israeli, or other Jew, would last if he/she took a stroll through the streets of Gaza ?

[StringJunky]

59 minutes ago, MigL said:

I guess I'm missing it too ...
There are Palestinians and other Arabs living and working in Israel, some even in Government institutions.
They seem prosperous and happy.

How long do you think an Israeli, or other Jew, would last if he/she took a stroll through the streets of Gaza ?

If one group is physically caged and constantly monitored and the other isn't, what do you expect?

[CharonY]

1 hour ago, MigL said:

How long do you think an Israeli, or other Jew, would last if he/she took a stroll through the streets of Gaza ?

How about you ask that the Israeli settlers in the West Bank? What emerges as a common thread through multiple reports is that Netanyahu's policy of enabling Hamas (and starving Fatah) in order to torpedo a two-state solution spectacularly backfired. It seems that the hope was the occasional (minor to moderate)  threat from Hamas, to justify a hardline approach. That, would fuel the attacks and keep things looping (and at the same time, make things harder for the more accommodating factions) 

I will also state that folks tend to support authoritarian figures when they perceive threat. We see that happening even in stable countries throughout Europe. I can only imagine how much that is amplified with an actual threat present.

[MigL]

The West Bank is relatively peaceful in comparison.
M Abbas and the PNA are fairly level headed and seem to want peace.
There is no reason why the two cultures couldn't co-exist on the same lands, Palestinian  or Israeli, as they have done for over a thousand years.

I agree that Netanyahu is a moron, more interested in retaining power than seeking peace, by displacing Palestinians to build settlements, and going as far as having secret meetings with Hamas leadership in order to overthrow Fatah, but to answer String Junky's question ... I don't expect terrorism and depraved butchery against children, women and the elderly.
And, I dare say, you wouldn't have many Palestinian children, women and elderly being killed in Israeli strikes if Hamas didn't hide under hospitals, schools and mosques like rats.

Anyone who says the Oct 7 raid/massacre by Hamas militants was justified, or can cheer them on like many students and protesters have, has descended to the same sub-human level.

[CharonY]

7 minutes ago, MigL said:

I don't expect terrorism and depraved butchery against children, women and the elderly.

The issue here is that we have got savage targeted murder of innocents on the one side and collateral murder of innocents on the other. Folks are suffering, while those responsible keep fueling the cycle.

[zapatos]

4 minutes ago, MigL said:

Anyone who says the Oct 7 raid/massacre by Hamas militants was justified, or can cheer them on like many students and protesters have, has descended to the same sub-human level.

The same could be said of anyone who says cutting off food, water and power, then bombing places occupied by children and the elderly is justified. It surprises me how many people feel comfortable calling one side barbaric while claiming the actions of their preferred side is justified.

[MigL]

9 minutes ago, zapatos said:

The same could be said of anyone who says cutting off food, water and power

Yet thousands of rockets still manage to get in ?

17 minutes ago, zapatos said:

It surprises me how many people feel comfortable calling one side barbaric while claiming the actions of their preferred side is justified

I agree, no death can be justified, but there is a difference.
Many of us went out during COVID and may have infected elderly people and got them killed as a result ( millions died ), but it takes a whole different level of nastiness to get up close and personal in order to butcher someone with a knife.
I don't think I could do it, and I presume you wouldn't be able to either.

[zapatos]

3 minutes ago, MigL said:

Yet thousands of rockets still manage to get in ?

Yes, rockets still get in. Not sure what your point is though. Are you suggesting food, water and power have not been cut off?

5 minutes ago, MigL said:

it takes a whole different level of nastiness to get up close and personal in order to butcher someone with a knife.
I don't think I could do it, and I presume you wouldn't be able to either.

I'm not sure the dead person would feel better knowing that their killer was a relatively nice person.

[iNow]

3 hours ago, MigL said:

to answer String Junky's question ... I don't expect terrorism and depraved butchery against children, women and the elderly.

One point that some are trying to remind us of (rightfully so) is that the hundreds (thousands, likely?) of infants and children and pregnant women and nursing mothers and farming fathers and otherwise peaceful Palestinians in Gaza are just as dead when they die by rocket fire as when meeting their maker thanks to a blade or bullet. 

2 hours ago, zapatos said:

I'm not sure the dead person would feel better knowing that their killer was a relatively nice person.

I see you beat me to the same point. 

[MigL]

I see ...

The kid who went to a party during COVID, became infected, brought it home to his grandmother, who subsequently passed away, is morally equivalent to a person who rapes a mother and then cuts her throat.

Both victims are just as dead.
( sounds even sillier when you say it out loud )

Edited October 30, 2023 by MigL

[zapatos]

Just now, MigL said:

I see ...

The kid who went to a party during COVID, became infected, brought it home to his grandmother, who subsequently passed away, is morally equivalent to a person who rapes a mother and then cuts her throat.

My mistake. I forgot what it was like trying to engage with you.

[StringJunky]

21 minutes ago, MigL said:

I see ...

The kid who went to a party during COVID, became infected, brought it home to his grandmother, who subsequently passed away, is morally equivalent to a person who rapes a mother and then cuts her throat.

Both victims are just as dead.
( sounds even sillier when you say it out loud )

Who has the upperhand on the news atm? The less we hear from Gaza, via power/media cuts and physical obstruction, the optics look better for the Israelis because they gain control of the media narrative. The relative quality of either sides media output is like comparing 4k to 675 lines of old TV.

Edited October 30, 2023 by StringJunky