EPTThings Aren’t Peaceful in Palestine - Page 133
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NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets. Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source. | ||
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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Salazarz
Korea (South)2591 Posts
On December 01 2023 09:50 Turbovolver wrote: Hamas has vowed to stop at nothing in exterminating all the Jews in the region. To pretend like there's no conceptual link to Nazism here beyond "generally bad" is extremely bad-faith. I also see no reason to lecture JimmiC about who is and isn't a Nazi, unless it's to try to say "well Hamas is not as bad as the Nazis". Hence my characterisation as defending them. @WombaT: It's very fair to say that Hamas is not like the Nazis in terms of their level of influence, but since when does influence matter? When virulently racist alt-right groups in Western countries are called Nazis, it's not because they are running a country. EDIT: Actually that's especially awkward choice of wording on my part because Hamas kinda is running the place, which only further speaks to my point. To pretend that antisemitism is the key defining attribute of Nazism is extremely bad-faith. There are tons of Nazis around the world today who aren't antisemitic in the slightest. Heck, there are plenty of actual Jews who would fit the definition of a Nazi very well sans the antisemitism part. You'll also notice that I was not 'lecturing' JimmiC about who is or isn't a Nazi, but rather pointing out that comparing Hamas to Hitler's Nazi Germany is completely misguided -- which it absolutely is, because the two have basically nothing in common outside of their antisemitism. | ||
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Turbovolver
Australia2384 Posts
On December 01 2023 09:57 Nebuchad wrote: One thing that I had not considered for the longest time but that now that it has been pointed out to me (by François Bégaudeau, credit where it's due) I can't stop seeing everywhere, is how much rightwingers are idealists. In the real world leftists will obviously oppose bad treatment of gays or minorities when it's done by anyone, but that's only the real world. It only matters if you care about it. Is there somewhere to read more about this? It feels like it's getting at something important and under-considered but I'm also not sure I'm understanding it properly just from your brief summary of the idea here. If I am getting the right idea, it seems like it speaks to what I meant when I was talking about American-centric politics. For people speaking English, the "real" will be American injustice, and dialogue will be swayed by that. This can make it look very weird when viewed from the idealistic lens of principles. Is that the point? | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland24404 Posts
On December 01 2023 10:02 JimmiC wrote: The pro Israeli posters on this thread are moderate, many wouldn’t be considered pro Israel on just about any thread that is not this one.None are calling for any of the horrible thing people here say Israel is all about. Oh I must be imagining all the folks saying even a halt to settlement expansion is some impossibility then. | ||
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Turbovolver
Australia2384 Posts
On December 01 2023 10:05 Salazarz wrote: To pretend that antisemitism is the key defining attribute of Nazism is extremely bad-faith. There are tons of Nazis around the world today who aren't antisemitic in the slightest. Heck, there are plenty of actual Jews who would fit the definition of a Nazi very well sans the antisemitism part. You'll also notice that I was not 'lecturing' JimmiC about who is or isn't a Nazi, but rather pointing out that comparing Hamas to Hitler's Nazi Germany is completely misguided -- which it absolutely is, because the two have basically nothing in common outside of their antisemitism. You keep misrepresenting me, although admittedly this time I think it's a fair misunderstanding. I personally am not presenting some formal definition of what is and isn't a Nazi. I don't feel qualified to make that call. I'm just some idiot who doesn't even consider himself politically very smart but got trolled into posting here when the discussion turned a bit more meta. What I'm not doing is saying you have to be antisemitic to be a Nazi. You'll notice in my response to WombaT that I also pointed to white nationalist groups as further examples of groups you could give the label to. I say "could" because like I said, I'm not gonna make that call myself, not for them and not for Hamas. I'm pretty sure you can find more than just "antisemitism" when you compare Germany's 25 points and Hamas' manifesto, though. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland24404 Posts
On December 01 2023 09:52 BlackJack wrote: Because it is. A notable example that comes to mind is the students at UC Berkeley attempting to ban comedian Bill Maher from giving a commencement address for supposed islamophobic comments. If you know anything about Bill Maher it should be that he's a critic of all religions. If you know anything about UC Berkeley it's that it's basically the ground zero for woke-leftist ideology. If you think they would have moved to ban him if his criticisms were of white Christians instead of brown Muslims then you are simply dreaming. And yet the same country is happy to throw an extra 13 billion dollars in aid to Israel. In the grand scheme of things I really don’t care if Bill Maher is withdrawn as some speaker at a college event. White Christians aren’t remotely, in any way some persecuted minority in most of our home countries, so some ribbing of them isn’t equivalent to groups that are. | ||
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Nebuchad
Switzerland12045 Posts
On December 01 2023 09:52 BlackJack wrote: Because it is. A notable example that comes to mind is the students at UC Berkeley attempting to ban comedian Bill Maher from giving a commencement address for supposed islamophobic comments. If you know anything about Bill Maher it should be that he's a critic of all religions. If you know anything about UC Berkeley it's that it's basically the ground zero for woke-leftist ideology. If you think they would have moved to ban him if his criticisms were of white Christians instead of brown Muslims then you are simply dreaming. You know what I should be going to sleep but this is the kind of thing I do for fun so let's do this. We have a claim that we set out to prove, which is, "Leftists only care about how gays and minorities are treated if they're badly treated by gays or christians". We're going to use a real event to prove that this claim works. The event is, Bill Maher was going to speak at a university, students protested. So here are a few problems with this: 1. There are no mentions of gays or minorities in this story. 2. Nobody in this story has criticized a white guy for doing something to gays or minorities. 3. Nobody in this story has not criticized a non-white guy for doing the same thing. So the event, as described here, has no connexion with the claim that it is supposed to be evidence for. We appear to be defending a different claim here, which is "students will oppose someone who criticizes islam and not someone who criticizes christians, that's because muslims are brown and christians are white". But again, there are a few problems with that, so let's do this too: 1. These events happen in the aftermath of the Harris Affleck situation on Bill Maher's show, in which Maher and Harris were very adamant that islam and christianity are NOT the same, islam being "the mother lode of bad ideas". Harris at this time was doing his cool thought experiment thing where he says that if muslims get hold of a nuclear bomb it would probably be a good idea to preemptively nuke them. Those quotes are Harris because Maher is just a dumbfuck I don't know exactly what he said, but he was agreeing with Harris I'm sure he had similar quotes. Those are not people who criticize islam and christianity in the same way, even though they oppose both. 2. Because of 1., the behavior of the students that you find issue with, even if you were correct, would not be hypocritical. We have to demonstrate that the criticism of Bill Maher as islamophobic is unjustified. It doesn't break any of the rules of reality that someone who is critical of all religions could also be islamophobic (and, as it happens, he is). 3. You have decided that the reason why there is, according to you, a difference in treatment between christianophobia and islamophobia is because one is the white religion and the other is the brown religion. I'll mention quickly that there are white muslims and brown christians, but we don't care, the framing makes enough sense if we speak in generalities. There is no evidence that the difference between how we deal with criticisms of christianity and how we deal with criticisms of islam is based on skin color, that's just something you've decided. A much simpler explanation would be that we see a difference in the way christianity is criticized and the way islam is criticized. Atheists from a christian background will criticize christianity and it'll be about how christians are irrational, laughable, maybe morally inferior. It won't be about how christians are incompatible with the West, it won't be hateful towards people, and it won't be dehumanizing. There is a stark contrast there in terms of the nature of the criticism. So again, the example that you used to prove this new claim also doesn't prove this new claim. In both cases, it's just you deciding that the important factor is who is white and who isn't. Edit: On a personal note, I'd like to mention that I'm generally not a big fan of atheists. I have argued in my life much more with atheists who criticize religions in silly ways than I have with religious people. I will always identify as agnostic because 1) it's a more accurate word and 2) I really don't want to be associated with a lot of these idiots. Turbovolver: + Show Spoiler + On December 01 2023 10:07 Turbovolver wrote: Is there somewhere to read more about this? It feels like it's getting at something important and under-considered but I'm also not sure I'm understanding it properly just from your brief summary of the idea here. If I am getting the right idea, it seems like it speaks to what I meant when I was talking about American-centric politics. For people speaking English, the "real" will be American injustice, and dialogue will be swayed by that. This can make it look very weird when viewed from the idealistic lens of principles. Is that the point? I could find the link again for you but it was in a video in french, I assume that won't help you a lot? We can PM if you're interested but I don't know if I'll really take the time to write a transcript :S | ||
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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Salazarz
Korea (South)2591 Posts
On December 01 2023 10:39 JimmiC wrote: I think you are. With peace I believe everyone figured Israel would go back to old boarders. Who is 'everyone'? If Israel's true endgame is peace, what's the reasoning behind settlement expansion? | ||
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Cerebrate1
265 Posts
On November 30 2023 19:21 Magic Powers wrote: Cerebrate keeps repeating his favorite quote. Time to dismantle it and make sure it can never be used unironically again. "If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence. If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel." 1) The word being used is "Arabs". Palestinians are a subsection of "the Arabs", they're not "all Arabs". Hence using the word "Arabs" and applying it to this conflict is already dubious. It happens to be that it applies to every group of Arabs that has stopped attacking Israel. Egypt stopped attacking and there hasn't been a war with it since. So too Jordan and a couple others. You might think that Palestinians are different, but I happen to disagree. 2) Palestinians have had their land stolen by Israel, not once but many times, and it's still happening today. Neither high nor minimal levels of violence by Palestinians have been able to change this fact. Perhaps I should clarify my position a bit. Palestine needs to have a leader that can guarantee that if he's given a state, that state won't just make war on Israel shortly thereafter. That has never been tried. 3) Israel enforces strict Apartheid. I don't want to get into the altered definition of this term for this conflict, but regarding the quote being discussed, it actually proves the quote right. There were tons of suicide bombings, stabbings, car rammings and other terrorist actions killing many Israelis in the Intifadas before the security fences and checkpoints were set up. Those mechanisms stopped the killings. It's literally an example of how Israel needs a strong defence to not have it's people killed. 4) Israel has killed far more Palestinians than the other way around. Efficacy at war is not the same as being the one who keeps starting stuff. America was better at war than Japan in WW2. That doesn't negate the fact that Japan were the ones kicking the hornets nest at Pearl Harbor. Need I go on? It's absurd to repeatedly use such a quote in this context. It's strictly a form of victim blaming. The victim should not receive equal blame for resisting against the oppressor. Furthermore, if Palestinians laid down their weapons for good, then the oppression would not end. Israel would keep the land and would continue to oppress Palestinians. This is true because it's what has been observed for decades. It's therefore on Cerebrate to prove the claim wrong. Unfortunately he can't prove it wrong, he hasn't even attempted to do that. Meanwhile if Israel were to end the oppression of Palestinians, that would be a completely unprecedented case. There is a lot to unwrap here and I don't have time to nitpick every point you're making. Suffice to say, trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is foolish. I don't have to prove that a new idea will 100% solve all the worlds problems to show that it might be at least worth considering. It has never even happened before. Well isn't that interesting. | ||
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Salazarz
Korea (South)2591 Posts
On December 01 2023 10:20 Turbovolver wrote: You keep misrepresenting me, although admittedly this time I think it's a fair misunderstanding. I personally am not presenting some formal definition of what is and isn't a Nazi. I don't feel qualified to make that call. I'm just some idiot who doesn't even consider himself politically very smart but got trolled into posting here when the discussion turned a bit more meta. What I'm not doing is saying you have to be antisemitic to be a Nazi. You'll notice in my response to WombaT that I also pointed to white nationalist groups as further examples of groups you could give the label to. I say "could" because like I said, I'm not gonna make that call myself, not for them and not for Hamas. I'm pretty sure you can find more than just "antisemitism" when you compare Germany's 25 points and Hamas' manifesto, though. No, you're the one misrepresenting me. You keep saying that I am 'defending' Hamas, when I have done nothing of the sort and in fact keep saying the opposite of that. You have straight up said that since both Hitler's Nazi Germany and Hamas hated Jews that makes them similar -- which is a bullshit argument. It's like saying, well, both Hitler and your mother didn't particularly like donuts so your mother is a Nazi. That's just not how reasonable comparisons work. Yes, Hamas 'ideology' (if you can even call it that) has some similarities with that of NSDAP. Sweden's social democracy also has some similarities with NSDAP. Does that make them literally Nazis? No! It would be a stupid fucking comparison to make, just like comparing Hamas to Nazi Germany is. They have nothing in common beyond some surface level 'all bad guys kinda do this thing' similarities. | ||
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Salazarz
Korea (South)2591 Posts
It happens to be that it applies to every group of Arabs that has stopped attacking Israel. Egypt stopped attacking and there hasn't been a war with it since. So too Jordan and a couple others. You might think that Palestinians are different, but I happen to disagree. It happens to be that every group of Arabs that isn't being occupied and ethnically cleansed by Israel has stopped attacking them. Israel isn't ethnically cleansing Egypt, and there hasn't been a war with it since. So too Jordan and a couple others. You might think that Palestinians are different, but I happen to disagree. Perhaps I should clarify my position a bit. Palestine needs to have a leader that can guarantee that if he's given a state, that state won't just make war on Israel shortly thereafter. That has never been tried. Palestine has absolutely no capability to successfully wage war against Israel, state or not. Israel has one of the world's most powerful militaries, a nuclear arsenal, and the backing of the US. Even if Palestine did try to wage war against Israel as a state, them having recognition as an independent state would not make their attacks suddenly more potent. I don't want to get into the altered definition of this term for this conflict, but regarding the quote being discussed, it actually proves the quote right. There were tons of suicide bombings, stabbings, car rammings and other terrorist actions killing many Israelis in the Intifadas before the security fences and checkpoints were set up. Those mechanisms stopped the killings. It's literally an example of how Israel needs a strong defence to not have it's people killed. Their apartheid activities go way beyond security fences and checkpoints. Efficacy at war is not the same as being the one who keeps starting stuff. America was better at war than Japan in WW2. That doesn't negate the fact that Japan were the ones kicking the hornets nest at Pearl Harbor. At best, the blame for 'starting stuff' is 50/50 here, and even that is debatable. It's not as if Israel was just peacefully existing in their homes and evil Arabs came a'knockin with torches and pitchforks. There is a lot to unwrap here and I don't have time to nitpick every point you're making. Suffice to say, trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is foolish. I don't have to prove that a new idea will 100% solve all the worlds problems to show that it might be at least worth considering. Totally, which is why if Israel is actually interested in peace, they should maybe try not ethnically cleansing Palestinians for a while and see how it goes. I just wanted to pull this one out to point out that, whatever your definition of oppression, I have a hard time imagining it applying to anything between 1949 to 1967. Israel gave all the local Arabs full citizenship and rights and integrated them into society like any democracy would. To this day, the local Arabs in Tel-Aviv do not have 'full citizenship and rights and integration into society.' There is significant systemic discrimination against Arabs in Israel (and it was significantly worse 50 years ago); and then there's the whole thing with people in Gaza having no rights whatsoever, and extremely limited rights (and a completely different set of laws) for people in West Bank as well. | ||
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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Turbovolver
Australia2384 Posts
Salazarz: There's no similarities beyond "is bad". Turbovolver: Uhh, bold-faced antisemitism is a pretty good example of a specific one beyond just "is bad". Salazarz: How can you pretend like antisemitism is the only trait defining a Nazi?! Sure, Hamas share that one similarity, but no others! Turbovolver: I'm not saying it's the only defining trait. Actually, I bet you could find more common traits if you compare Nazi and Hamas mission statements. Salazarz: Yes, there are some similarities. Glad we agree  And if you're not defending them, I have to wonder why you keep moving the goalposts, as is pretty clear when you boil the conversation down as I did just there. | ||
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Salazarz
Korea (South)2591 Posts
On December 01 2023 11:06 Turbovolver wrote: Turbovolver: You insisting Hamas are nothing like Nazis sure seems like defending them, because there are definite similarities. Salazarz: There's no similarities beyond "is bad". Turbovolver: Uhh, bold-faced antisemitism is a pretty good example of a specific one beyond just "is bad". Salazarz: How can you pretend like antisemitism is the only trait defining a Nazi?! Sure, Hamas share that one similarity, but no others! Turbovolver: I'm not saying it's the only defining trait. Actually, I bet you could find more common traits if you compare Nazi and Hamas mission statements. Salazarz: Yes, there are some similarities. Glad we agree And if you're not defending them, I have to wonder why you keep moving the goalposts, as is pretty clear when you boil the conversation down as I did just there. You're actually pretty much the same as Hitler, you know that, right? | ||
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Turbovolver
Australia2384 Posts
Not quite pretty much the same, Salazarz! | ||
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Salazarz
Korea (South)2591 Posts
On December 01 2023 11:05 JimmiC wrote: Depends on the settler. A few people went through it in great detail. Grand ethnic cleansing conspiracy is not only not the only option, it is also far from the most likely. Israel's government and military have supported settlement expansion for about as long as Israel has existed. Settlement territory and population is an uninterrupted upwards trend. There is no conspiracy, it's the reality of what is actually happening. | ||
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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Salazarz
Korea (South)2591 Posts
On December 01 2023 11:11 Turbovolver wrote: *slowly removes mask, revealing literal Hitler* Not quite pretty much the same, Salazarz! *slowly removes mask, revealing Ismail Haniyeh* Damn buddy and I thought we were enemies. I learned everything from Mein Kampf, you're my hero and I've been moulding all of Hamas after your ideals! ? good talk I guess | ||
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Turbovolver
Australia2384 Posts
On December 01 2023 11:14 Salazarz wrote: *slowly removes mask, revealing Ismail Haniyeh* Damn buddy and I thought we were enemies. I learned everything from Mein Kampf, you're my hero and I've been moulding all of Hamas after your ideals! Hahaha. Actually, I find that post the most convincing of yours. When you think of the individuals and where they're coming from, I agree they look pretty different. | ||
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