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With half the thread banned maybe we can talk about what is actually happening on the ground.
Israel just completed a road across Gaza.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68514821
For me the logical way to handle this would be to displace people south, clear the north, filter them back north, clear the south, take the Egyptian border and then you pretty much control all of Gaza.
Or they could use it as an obstacle to prevent any return to the north.
I'm unsure how clearing operations are going north, livemap doesn't change at all and there is not a lot of info on what the IDF are doing or their progress.
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An east-west road that runs the entire length of Gaza? Perhaps this is where Israel plans to stake out a new border at the end of this war. The land to the north will be annexed as the spoils of war. Obviously without saying you're annexing the land. Something like "We're indefinitely continuing our occupation of Gaza for security reasons and establishing this temporary border to set up a demilitarized zone." Then wait for the sands of time to make that land part of Israel and start building settlements.
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Question for anyone who has issues with Israel’s response to Oct. 7th or defines themselves as Pro-Palestinian:
Let’s say you magically become Bibi on Oct. 8th Freaky Friday style. You’re now finally in the best position to dictate Israel policy towards Palestine moving forward. You have influence over how everything will be done.
However, you also have responsibilities. You must maintain the security of the State of Israel, while also attempting to maintain the security of every single Israeli civilian. If these are neglected then you’ll be kicked out of power pretty damn quick, and replaced with someone who may not have your Pro-Palestinian views. Ergo if you want to maintain the power to help Palestine, you need to play ball and take your responsibilities seriously.
Unfortunately, it’s now Oct 8th and the views of your populace have radicalized. A lot are calling for vengeance against Palestinians, but the meaningful majority are both angry at your incompetence for letting this happen, and demanding that you do everything in your power to get the hostages back that are located in Gaza. Again, if you don’t address these, you’re out on your ass and you can’t use this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to finally give Palestinians the help they need.
As a newly non-racist Pro-Palestinian Bibi (for simplicity let’s say you don’t need to worry about dealing with your still-racist politician supporters in the Likud/Knesset), how do you shape Israel’s actions/policy to be in the best interests of the Palestinian people while pacifying your radicalized populace?
EDIT - I’m not interested in what you would NOT do (e.g. Israel’s current response), because that doesn’t solve the problem presented.
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On March 11 2024 18:20 BlackJack wrote:
An east-west road that runs the entire length of Gaza? Perhaps this is where Israel plans to stake out a new border at the end of this war. The land to the north will be annexed as the spoils of war. Obviously without saying you're annexing the land. Something like "We're indefinitely continuing our occupation of Gaza for security reasons and establishing this temporary border to set up a demilitarized zone." Then wait for the sands of time to make that land part of Israel and start building settlements.
And then rinse and repeat because those settlements are getting attacked from the even smaller strip that is still Palestinian, yeah. Or maybe declare the road Israeli and to pass from north to south in Gaza you need to go through checkpoints. Then you need military settlements for people who man the checkpoints to live in, and ... keep expanding out from that road.
If Israel was interested in actual infrastructural development in Gaza, a good start would have been to not bomb everything in the first place.
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On March 11 2024 21:27 Ryzel wrote:
Question for anyone who has issues with Israel’s response to Oct. 7th or defines themselves as Pro-Palestinian:
Let’s say you magically become Bibi on Oct. 8th Freaky Friday style. You’re now finally in the best position to dictate Israel policy towards Palestine moving forward. You have influence over how everything will be done.
However, you also have responsibilities. You must maintain the security of the State of Israel, while also attempting to maintain the security of every single Israeli civilian. If these are neglected then you’ll be kicked out of power pretty damn quick, and replaced with someone who may not have your Pro-Palestinian views. Ergo if you want to maintain the power to help Palestine, you need to play ball and take your responsibilities seriously.
Unfortunately, it’s now Oct 8th and the views of your populace have radicalized. A lot are calling for vengeance against Palestinians, but the meaningful majority are both angry at your incompetence for letting this happen, and demanding that you do everything in your power to get the hostages back that are located in Gaza. Again, if you don’t address these, you’re out on your ass and you can’t use this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to finally give Palestinians the help they need.
As a newly non-racist Pro-Palestinian Bibi, how do you shape Israel’s actions/policy to be in the best interests of the Palestinian people while pacifying your radicalized populace?
EDIT - I’m not interested in what you would NOT do (e.g. Israel’s current response), because that doesn’t solve the problem presented.
This is terrible framing for such a question.
The situation didn't just magically happen, Bibi didn't wake up freaky Friday style as PM. He has a long history of fighting Palestinian statehood, encouraging Hamas as a strategy for doing the first thing, and generally playing the role of head-of-the-colonial-state. Of course he'd be impotent to do otherwise. He isn't unpopular for oppressing Palestinians - he's unpopular for for messing it up and letting some terrorists through the wall.
And let's be crystal clear: bombing the shit out of the entire Gaza strip was not done to get the hostages back. No point returning burnt corpses.
Truth be told, there realistically isn't something Israel would do, politically realistically, that would be a good response.
Which is why it shouldn't be their goddamn choice. People didn't go throwing money at my country for Apartheiding, they stopped trade and kicked us out of much of the world stage until we stopped doing the humanity-criming. It's surreal to see Israel just... not have that done to them?
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On March 11 2024 21:27 Ryzel wrote:
Question for anyone who has issues with Israel’s response to Oct. 7th or defines themselves as Pro-Palestinian:
Let’s say you magically become Bibi on Oct. 8th Freaky Friday style. You’re now finally in the best position to dictate Israel policy towards Palestine moving forward. You have influence over how everything will be done.
However, you also have responsibilities. You must maintain the security of the State of Israel, while also attempting to maintain the security of every single Israeli civilian. If these are neglected then you’ll be kicked out of power pretty damn quick, and replaced with someone who may not have your Pro-Palestinian views. Ergo if you want to maintain the power to help Palestine, you need to play ball and take your responsibilities seriously.
Unfortunately, it’s now Oct 8th and the views of your populace have radicalized. A lot are calling for vengeance against Palestinians, but the meaningful majority are both angry at your incompetence for letting this happen, and demanding that you do everything in your power to get the hostages back that are located in Gaza. Again, if you don’t address these, you’re out on your ass and you can’t use this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to finally give Palestinians the help they need.
As a newly non-racist Pro-Palestinian Bibi (for simplicity let’s say you don’t need to worry about dealing with your still-racist politician supporters in the Likud/Knesset), how do you shape Israel’s actions/policy to be in the best interests of the Palestinian people while pacifying your radicalized populace?
EDIT - I’m not interested in what you would NOT do (e.g. Israel’s current response), because that doesn’t solve the problem presented.
Interesting thought experiment, but unfortunately based on a faulty premise, as well as a rather impossible requirement. The faulty premise is that you have to take actions that the Israeli people generally agree with. That doesn't seem to be something Bibi has been limited by, so why is it a requirement for this freaky friday'd Bibi?
The impossibility stems from a similar thing: clearly anybody engaging with this thought experiment will choose to do something different from what the Israeli government did. How do we decide if that different course of action would have been sufficiently acceptable to the Israeli populace to not revolt and chuck freaky Bibi in jail and elect an even crazier right wing asshole to take over?
Judging by Israeli elections over the last decade or so, the alternative to the Likud is even more radical rightwing politics. So it's fairly simple to pose that any attempt at reconciliation and a path to peace would be met with revolt, even if that wouldn't actually be the case: we have no way of knowing.
Anyway, I think we already did this thought experiment in October, when people were clamoring about "oh, well, if Israel's response is so awful, what would you have done". There were a bunch of proposals. What was wrong with those?
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On March 11 2024 21:27 Ryzel wrote:
Question for anyone who has issues with Israel’s response to Oct. 7th or defines themselves as Pro-Palestinian:
Let’s say you magically become Bibi on Oct. 8th Freaky Friday style. You’re now finally in the best position to dictate Israel policy towards Palestine moving forward. You have influence over how everything will be done.
However, you also have responsibilities. You must maintain the security of the State of Israel, while also attempting to maintain the security of every single Israeli civilian. If these are neglected then you’ll be kicked out of power pretty damn quick, and replaced with someone who may not have your Pro-Palestinian views. Ergo if you want to maintain the power to help Palestine, you need to play ball and take your responsibilities seriously.
Unfortunately, it’s now Oct 8th and the views of your populace have radicalized. A lot are calling for vengeance against Palestinians, but the meaningful majority are both angry at your incompetence for letting this happen, and demanding that you do everything in your power to get the hostages back that are located in Gaza. Again, if you don’t address these, you’re out on your ass and you can’t use this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to finally give Palestinians the help they need.
As a newly non-racist Pro-Palestinian Bibi (for simplicity let’s say you don’t need to worry about dealing with your still-racist politician supporters in the Likud/Knesset), how do you shape Israel’s actions/policy to be in the best interests of the Palestinian people while pacifying your radicalized populace?
EDIT - I’m not interested in what you would NOT do (e.g. Israel’s current response), because that doesn’t solve the problem presented.
Let's turn this around for a second. Let's say you magically become Sinwar, or whomever is the real boss of Hamas. You're now in the best position to dictate policy towards Israel (and in general) moving forward. You have influence over how everything will be done.
However, you also have responsibilities. Having Palestinian people forcibly relocated somewhere is not acceptable, neither is having them assimilated as second rate citizens of Israel. You need to maintain the values of Palestinian people, however shitty you might think those values are, and find a way to not only preserve Palestinian culture and territories but also turn Palestine into a truly independent, self-sufficient state.
How do you shape Palestinian actions / policy to be in the best interests of the Palestinian people, knowing full well that Israel's government isn't interested in a two-state solution and that if they can help it at all, you will never have an independent Palestinian state; all the while the world at large is content to ignore whatever is happening in the region unless something absolutely extraordinary happens?
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On March 11 2024 21:27 Ryzel wrote:
Question for anyone who has issues with Israel’s response to Oct. 7th or defines themselves as Pro-Palestinian:
Let’s say you magically become Bibi on Oct. 8th Freaky Friday style. You’re now finally in the best position to dictate Israel policy towards Palestine moving forward. You have influence over how everything will be done.
However, you also have responsibilities. You must maintain the security of the State of Israel, while also attempting to maintain the security of every single Israeli civilian. If these are neglected then you’ll be kicked out of power pretty damn quick, and replaced with someone who may not have your Pro-Palestinian views. Ergo if you want to maintain the power to help Palestine, you need to play ball and take your responsibilities seriously.
Unfortunately, it’s now Oct 8th and the views of your populace have radicalized. A lot are calling for vengeance against Palestinians, but the meaningful majority are both angry at your incompetence for letting this happen, and demanding that you do everything in your power to get the hostages back that are located in Gaza. Again, if you don’t address these, you’re out on your ass and you can’t use this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to finally give Palestinians the help they need.
As a newly non-racist Pro-Palestinian Bibi (for simplicity let’s say you don’t need to worry about dealing with your still-racist politician supporters in the Likud/Knesset), how do you shape Israel’s actions/policy to be in the best interests of the Palestinian people while pacifying your radicalized populace?
EDIT - I’m not interested in what you would NOT do (e.g. Israel’s current response), because that doesn’t solve the problem presented.
It doesn't seem possible to me that someone pro-Palestinian would be elected PM of Israel. So yes every pro-palestinian measure that you could conjure up would be opposed by the population of Israel, but that's the same issue that would have prevented this person from getting elected in the first place. If we were in a world where a pro-palestinian politician could be prime minister of Israel, then Israel's population wouldn't appear as opposed to these measures as they appear now, so the hurdle that you see in our way is a hurdle that's there because we're mixing two alternative worlds.
Edit: well shit, everyone answered this while I was typing, did they ^^'
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In the interest of engaging a bit more with the actual proposition. Israel was basically given a blank check after Oct 7th and Bibi spend it on flattening Gaza.
Imagine if he actually used that, and the international outrage to go after the leaders and financiers of Hamas living abroad. Pressure Qatar to give them up, perhaps even launch a commando operation to take them out (like the US raid to kill Bin Laden) if they know where they are (considering we're talking about the Mossad I would assume they do).
What is Qatar going to do? go to war with Israel when basically the entire world stands firmly behind them? I think we know how that would turn out for Qatar.
Israel could have send a very powerful signal that no matter where you hide if you support Hamas, they can and will get you. Instead they radicalized several more generations of Palestinians into fighting Israeli oppression.
If they wanted to also impact Gaza the answer is, as I have said for a while now, precision. Not flattening whole neighbourhoods and no large scale ground offensive. "But they want you to get the hostages back" isn't a good reason to demand more, considering the offensive didn't get the hostages back now either. They rescues 3? through military operations only.
But ofcourse this all assumes the goal is to actually fight Hamas, rather then further oppress Palestinians and clear out Gaza. Israels actual actions in response to Oct 7th points me towards the latter, rather then the former.
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Isreal has wanted public recognition from the arab world for generations now and was in the process of negotiating that with the saudis. After oct 7th bibi had a blank check to delegitimize hamas and the entire Palestinian experiment. If bibi didn't want to anex the west bank and take half of gaza he could have opened the door to the rest of the arab world to "solve the issue" their way. If he really wanted peace it has to come from help from other arab states, no one can be under the delusion that Isreal has the capability of solving peace in the middle east on their own.
You don't get to "well genocide is the only option now" without actively trying to eliminate any perceived option available other than genocide. Bibi knows what hes doing and did it anyway.
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Goodness that was fast lol
@Ciaus - Yes obviously there’s lots of issues with the hypothetical, some you have described. However, typically when we’re judging an agent on a given decision, there’s an implicit assumption that the agent could either have A) done something else or B) nothing at all, given the pressures/motivations/constraints that agent has. If we’re going to be judging the source of Israel’s decision-making in reference to a given purpose (helping Palestinians), we need to explore what A) and B) looks like that’s valid for the decision-maker, and whether those lead to better outcomes. Again, that’s obviously difficult to do for the reasons described, but this is my best attempt. You’re free to not engage with it, or offer a better solution to this problem!
@Acro - You raise a good point about Bibi not necessarily needing to follow the will of the people since he’s been able to maintain power regardless, so I guess Freaky Friday Bibi may have more leeway to implement unpopular Pro-Palestinian policies than I originally thought. TBH I don’t remember when this was brought up before and missed other answers to this, I should go back and check.
@Salazarz - You’ll forgive me if I’m not currently interested in engaging with your (admittedly relevant) premise, given that you’re clearly not interested in engaging with mine. Maybe later though.
@Neb - My answer to Ciaus seems to apply to your post as well.
@Gors - I appreciate you being willing to engage with the premise. I do agree, it does seem like more international pressure on Hamas itself with targeting its international presence, coupled with maybe tighter border security and outreach towards Palestinian authorities that oppose Hamas, would be a better option for Palestinians and Gaza.
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On March 11 2024 23:53 Ryzel wrote:
Goodness that was fast lol
@Ciaus - Yes obviously there’s lots of issues with the hypothetical, some you have described. However, typically when we’re judging an agent on a given decision, there’s an implicit assumption that the agent could either have A) done something else or B) nothing at all, given the pressures/motivations/constraints that agent has. If we’re going to be judging the source of Israel’s decision-making in reference to a given purpose (helping Palestinians), we need to explore what A) and B) looks like that’s valid for the decision-maker, and whether those lead to better outcomes. Again, that’s obviously difficult to do for the reasons described, but this is my best attempt. You’re free to not engage with it, or offer a better solution to this problem!
@Acro - You raise a good point about Bibi not necessarily needing to follow the will of the people since he’s been able to maintain power regardless, so I guess Freaky Friday Bibi may have more leeway to implement unpopular Pro-Palestinian policies than I originally thought. TBH I don’t remember when this was brought up before and missed other answers to this, I should go back and check.
@Salazarz - You’ll forgive me if I’m not currently interested in engaging with your (admittedly relevant) premise, given that you’re clearly not interested in engaging with mine. Maybe later though.
@Neb - My answer to Ciaus seems to apply to your post as well.
@Gors - I appreciate you being willing to engage with the premise. I do agree, it does seem like more international pressure on Hamas itself with targeting its international presence, coupled with maybe tighter border security and outreach towards Palestinian authorities that oppose Hamas, would be a better option for Palestinians and Gaza.
I personally don't think that Bibi had a ton of options to do anything else than what he did, or I guess to word it differently I don't find it surprising or disappointing that he did this. If I was Bibi I would have done just about the same, maybe spend a little more money to get better propaganda out.
If I understand your premise correctly to engage with it I would have to believe that Bibi is failing on an individual level, and that's not really what I'm observing.
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Selling Real Estate in the West Bank? The Real Estate company goes to the 2 places in NA with low vioent crime rates first. Toronto and Montreal.
I know several Toronto and New York residents who live in Israel part of the month and live in NA part of the month. It seems they're marketing towards that kind of customer. So these properties they're selling could resemble the "empty condos" that now proliferate North American cities like Vancouver , Toronto, and Manhatten.
Does any one know any Jews living in LA who fly to Israel regularly? I do not know any. It is a very long flight. From Toronto/New York to Israel is ~11 hours and its not super difficult to get a direct flight.
Here is a very cynical take on this... this Real Estate Company did their first "events" in places with really low violent crime rates before having events in New YOrk state.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/3-charged-demonstration-thornhill-real-estate-event-1.7138666
The stereotype of "nothing ever happens in the suburbs" really applies to Thornhill. It is as "sleepy" of a sleepy suburb of Toronto as you can get. This allows the organizers to point fingers at even the slightest misconduct.
IMO, this event was a bad idea. And this concept... is BS. THe empty condos in Vancouver, Toronto and Manhatten are unethical given the housing crisis. If these West Bank properties are sold to part time residents... that is also unethical.
I don't want to hear from the organizers how shocked and surprised they are at the reaction. They know exactly what they are doing.
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Northern Ireland24350 Posts
On March 11 2024 22:31 Gorsameth wrote:
In the interest of engaging a bit more with the actual proposition. Israel was basically given a blank check after Oct 7th and Bibi spend it on flattening Gaza
…But ofcourse this all assumes the goal is to actually fight Hamas, rather then further oppress Palestinians and clear out Gaza. Israels actual actions in response to Oct 7th points me towards the latter, rather then the former.
Yeah this is a good point. Crisis and atrocity are of course not desirable, but they do on occasion confer an extraordinary amount of political capital, it almost becomes a double tragedy to then subsequently squander that, assuming of course an earnest effort to accomplish one’s ostensible goals.
Hey it’s a minefield and difficult to navigate, it’s foolish to claim otherwise. But I mean you had a gradual, gradual thawing and moving towards at least some level of normalisation with select nations of the Arab world going in. Then you have Hamas perpetrate such egregious open atrocity that at least moderate elements of aforementioned places will see the need maintain a push for normalisation, if not accelerate it, however minorly. You’ve got a period where, at least at a state/governmental level, the entire Western world largely has your back.
Flattening Gaza? To me that’s just not the play here unless well, as you already alluded to.
October 7th was, on a military level, on a geopolitical strategic level, obviously on a humane level an act of absolute madness from Hamas. The only, and by only I mean the sole one I can personally think of, way that it generates any paydirt whatsoever is if Israel goes into full wrathful vengeance mode afterwards.
Which, effectively Israel decided to do ultimately. Of course it’s unrealistic to expect no response whatsoever, I don’t think many would argue that.
Look I know it’s a widely accepted nickname for the lad but as a more general appeal to the thread we have to call him Bibi? I will wholly concede that this is entirely possibly a ‘just me’ problem haha
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On March 12 2024 09:13 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2024 22:31 Gorsameth wrote:
In the interest of engaging a bit more with the actual proposition. Israel was basically given a blank check after Oct 7th and Bibi spend it on flattening Gaza
…But ofcourse this all assumes the goal is to actually fight Hamas, rather then further oppress Palestinians and clear out Gaza. Israels actual actions in response to Oct 7th points me towards the latter, rather then the former. Yeah this is a good point. Crisis and atrocity are of course not desirable, but they do on occasion confer an extraordinary amount of political capital, it almost becomes a double tragedy to then subsequently squander that, assuming of course an earnest effort to accomplish one’s ostensible goals. Hey it’s a minefield and difficult to navigate, it’s foolish to claim otherwise. But I mean you had a gradual, gradual thawing and moving towards at least some level of normalisation with select nations of the Arab world going in. Then you have Hamas perpetrate such egregious open atrocity that at least moderate elements of aforementioned places will see the need maintain a push for normalisation, if not accelerate it, however minorly. You’ve got a period where, at least at a state/governmental level, the entire Western world largely has your back. Flattening Gaza? To me that’s just not the play here unless well, as you already alluded to. October 7th was, on a military level, on a geopolitical strategic level, obviously on a humane level an act of absolute madness from Hamas. The only, and by only I mean the sole one I can personally think of, way that it generates any paydirt whatsoever is if Israel goes into full wrathful vengeance mode afterwards. Which, effectively Israel decided to do ultimately. Of course it’s unrealistic to expect no response whatsoever, I don’t think many would argue that. Look I know it’s a widely accepted nickname for the lad but as a more general appeal to the thread we have to call him Bibi? I will wholly concede that this is entirely possibly a ‘just me’ problem haha
I'm not sure there's much to debate on the matter. This entire conflict is, like you mentioned, pure madness from humanitarian perspective. The worst thing is that there really isn't a good side in it that you could support. Whoever comes on top it'll mean absolute disaster for a whole other nation basically. Probably one of the reasons why no one else really wants to get involved actively.
I'm really sympathizing with Palestinian civilians though, since they're suffering the most in this, but I can't support Hamas and would be a hypocrite if I said I hate what Israeli apartheid state has been doing there for decades and at the same time wished them wiped out. So, all I can do is feel deep sympathy for the civilians while being rather angry with Israel and Hamas because there's literally nothing else I can do about this other than donating to some charity that would deliver necessities to the refugees.
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On March 10 2024 19:15 Salazarz wrote:
Personally, I just find it ironic that some of the biggest 'Uyghur genocide!' calls come from the same people who insist that Islam is an evil religion of violence that has no place in the modern society and / or that the solution to the conflict in Palestine would be to have Israel take over Palestine's administration and education and, to put it bluntly, teach those pesky Palestinians how to live the 'right' way.
For what it's worth, there isn't a particularly strong separatism movement in Xinjiang. There are some who push for more autonomy, but a large portion of Uyghurs seems to be quite happy to just be allowed to live their lives as part of the broader Chinese society. Whether that is the result of propaganda and cultural oppression or just young people preferring the comforts of modern-ish lifestyle to herding sheep in desert oases, I couldn't tell.
I haven't seen anyone claiming that on this thread.
There is a problem of certain actors politicizing Islam for their own (often violent) goals. (Often cherry picking verses to do so.)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I haven't heard about the Uyghurs having any politically violent movements that are a threat to anyone's safety.
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Northern Ireland24350 Posts
On March 12 2024 13:05 Cerebrate1 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 10 2024 19:15 Salazarz wrote:
Personally, I just find it ironic that some of the biggest 'Uyghur genocide!' calls come from the same people who insist that Islam is an evil religion of violence that has no place in the modern society and / or that the solution to the conflict in Palestine would be to have Israel take over Palestine's administration and education and, to put it bluntly, teach those pesky Palestinians how to live the 'right' way.
For what it's worth, there isn't a particularly strong separatism movement in Xinjiang. There are some who push for more autonomy, but a large portion of Uyghurs seems to be quite happy to just be allowed to live their lives as part of the broader Chinese society. Whether that is the result of propaganda and cultural oppression or just young people preferring the comforts of modern-ish lifestyle to herding sheep in desert oases, I couldn't tell. I haven't seen anyone claiming that on this thread. There is a problem of certain actors politicizing Islam for their own (often violent) goals. (Often cherry picking verses to do so.) Correct me if I'm wrong, but I haven't heard about the Uyghurs having any politically violent movements that are a threat to anyone's safety.
There is certainly a (non)Venn Diagram where ‘China is bad’ + ‘Islam is bad’ intersect to give the result ‘China’s Uighur policy is bad’.
As you say I don’t think these are broad sentiments that folks here hold, certainly not openly. I have seen it plenty elsewhere but then I’ve seen plenty of other things elsewhere I wouldn’t want to necessarily prompt a discussion in here.
With the usual caveat that I’m not Mr Source and may be sharing something from a relatively uncredible or especially biased source I found this a decent read. Although perhaps it’s a better general primer on the subject for context of various kinds than answering that specific question re terrorism and organised separatism more broadly.
…In fact, reflecting the sense of futility fighting the Chinese state – even years before technology significantly bolstered its surveillance apparatus – most Uyghur jihadis chose to leave China. It was not only because they sought to help their Muslim brothers in Afghanistan or Syria but primarily because they lacked the ability to operate in Xinjiang. It is unlikely that these volunteers will ever return home or successfully establish an active outfit to fight the Chinese authorities inside China.
I feel this tracks, although it’s not an area I’m particularly confident on. Like many/most Muslims, or indeed most religious practitioners the world over religious identity is not something that completely supersedes national or ethnic identity. And if it does, there’s that pull of various religiously motivated conflicts you can partake in more easily than trying to construct an apparatus to do so in one’s native locale where even your fellow practitioners will probably view it with hostility, never mind other folks.
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On March 12 2024 13:05 Cerebrate1 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 10 2024 19:15 Salazarz wrote:
Personally, I just find it ironic that some of the biggest 'Uyghur genocide!' calls come from the same people who insist that Islam is an evil religion of violence that has no place in the modern society and / or that the solution to the conflict in Palestine would be to have Israel take over Palestine's administration and education and, to put it bluntly, teach those pesky Palestinians how to live the 'right' way.
For what it's worth, there isn't a particularly strong separatism movement in Xinjiang. There are some who push for more autonomy, but a large portion of Uyghurs seems to be quite happy to just be allowed to live their lives as part of the broader Chinese society. Whether that is the result of propaganda and cultural oppression or just young people preferring the comforts of modern-ish lifestyle to herding sheep in desert oases, I couldn't tell. I haven't seen anyone claiming that on this thread. There is a problem of certain actors politicizing Islam for their own (often violent) goals. (Often cherry picking verses to do so.) Correct me if I'm wrong, but I haven't heard about the Uyghurs having any politically violent movements that are a threat to anyone's safety.
I think the whole thing started with a string of bombings but that was a long time ago.
The thing that seems (I don't really follow it) different about China is that they aren't really using the Uyghurs as political scapegoats. In general Chinese feel some cultural superiority but the government isn't blaming all the problems on the muslims (which problems? No problems in China!). And can Chinese people even talk about it on social media or read about it in the news?
It's not really hate or bigotry or stealing land, its a policy about cultural unity where any nail that sticks out gets hammered down.
Xi saw the added revolt risk from different culture and had spare admin points so he clicked the cultural conversion button. Just menial evil bureaucracy at work.
I disagree with it but at the same time I do think the west has made a grave mistake in completely letting go from promoting national unity and cohesion and this is the extreme end of the same idea.
Anyway I think it's apples and oranges to Palestinians because both the fundamental goal and the process is radically different.
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Northern Ireland24350 Posts
On March 10 2024 06:38 RenSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2024 23:30 WombaT wrote:On March 09 2024 09:38 JimmiC wrote:On March 09 2024 08:50 WombaT wrote:On March 08 2024 13:28 JimmiC wrote:On March 08 2024 11:57 WombaT wrote:On March 08 2024 10:55 JimmiC wrote:On March 08 2024 09:59 WombaT wrote:On March 08 2024 08:06 Nebuchad wrote:On March 08 2024 08:02 JimmiC wrote:
[quote]
The Jews are most certainly synonymous with Israel. The example in the definition is Boston.and marathon, now those two go together but I’m pretty sure the first thing that comes to mind when you say Israel is the Jews and vice versa. Thank you , I couldn’t have said it better my self.
In current event news the blood thirsty Israelis are dumbly setting up a third ground entrance to Gaza to allow more aid to pass, completely going against their secret but obvious goal of killing all the Palestinians. The complicit evil Americans are setting up a port. What monsters. /s
A reminder that one page ago I said that you were equating Israel and Jewish people and you said that I was an evil bad person misrepresenting you, and now you say that "The Jews are most certainly synonymous with Israel". For the rest, I'll leave it there. As already said, this, to me, is an antisemitic notion, and the closest anyone in this thread has been to being openly antisemitic. I mean Cerebrate who I think posts very sensibly and cogently, but would probably personally concede a certain level of bias isn’t going around pulling the anti-semitism charge on posters in this particular thread, which I feel is somewhat telling. Jimmy just wants to argue that Israel is a liberal democracy and thus charges one can level against it are somehow deflected by that. He equivocates constantly to justify Israeli actions in a manner he absolutely does not to other scenarios. Oh it’s not ethnic cleansing it’s like, something bad but it isn’t that. Oh it’s not colonalism it’s merely ‘wanting land for people to live’. Then getting offended by someone drawing a parallel with ‘lebensraum’ which literally translated means ‘living space’. Then he wants to say he’s the sole voice of unbiased reason while he’ll absolutely slam China for doing (on a much less egregious scale) the exact same thing Israel does because he doesn’t like their political system. The guy literally said settlements might not be that bad because at some future juncture Israel might give them back, it’s preposterous argumentation. Words matter, Annexing land is not good. But it is also not colonialism, hence the two different words. In war lots of morally repugnant things are not war crimes. that you think China is doing the same, and on less of scale shows your complete lack of understanding. And probably a lot of bias to the "right" Israel and the "left" China. If you critically thought about each situation with out the political labels you would likely have different opinions. Sadly you like most get your info from the horribly unreliable and extremely biased (on purpose) social media and don't both to look further. By critical thought you mean rank inconsistency and the fallacy of moderation right? No I mean critical thought. The Uighurs are actually subjugated and being systematically ethnically cleansed. Here are some key differences, there is no Gaza or WB for them, they have been completely taken over. This means no government or pesky military wing. They are not allowed to teach their own children, the Chinese handle that. They are not allowed to practice their religion. Can they freely reproduce? Step out of line end up at a “reeducation center”, coming back not guaranteed. How come no journalists are going or covering it, there are none allowed. There is a clear difference. One is subjugation and one is a severely outmatched army picked a fight with a way bigger army and is using their own people as shields to protect themselves. You guys moralizing on me when you are so bloody inconsistent and only are REALLY REALLY mad, so mad you can’t be respectful or logical, when twitter tells you to and about who. None of you cared, or seem to actually care about that one though. Only time it gets brought up is as a false comparison because you don’t under stand what the words mean or apparently what is going on. They’re able to reproduce and haven’t been systematically wiped out, so how’s it ethnic cleansing? You’ve literally argued that Israel aren’t involved in ethnic cleansing because they haven’t just wiped the Palestinian people off the map entirely, so I’m curious how the Uighur situation is any different in terms of your willingess to use the term for one and not the other. So how are the Uighurs being ethnically cleansed by the same metrics you’ve used to say the Palestinians aren’t? What’s the underlining logic you’re employing here that makes you, rather than me the one employing cold hearted logic exactly? Don’t have a Twitter account man, and I’d have you refer to it as ‘X’ while we’re at it. See, luckily for me to what knowledge I have gleaned the Uighur situation is a very obvious instance of ethnic cleanisng of a cultural/ethnic tradition and not one I’ve ever actually claimed isn’t, nor one that I’d support for other reasons. And one you’ll never find a post for me defending. You’re the one trying to thread a needle between x is ethnic cleansing, y isn’t despite them being incredibly similar and having to justify the gap there, which thus far you haven’t been able to via any consistent framework. Don’t fucking come complaining when people point it out That’s not at all what I said and you know it, I don’t know if your trying way to hard to fit in with the “cool” kids or just have zero clue what your saying. Spectacularly disappointed with you as a person. Are you going to answer my question or not? It’s probably about the fifth time I’ve posed it. It’s hardly an unreasonable, bad faith question to ask why you have zero compunction in classifying China’s treatment of the Uighur’s as ethnic cleansing, but not Israel’s of the Palestinians. You can’t simultaneously demand answers to questions such as ‘why does the left care more about Israel more than x?’ which I amongst others have earnestly attempted to answer, able to easily be scrolled back to while avoiding answering a very similar question as it pertains to your stance on Israel and China’s respective policies and your different categorisation of said policies. I don’t see why such a request would induce disappointment in me as a person whatsoever I'll try to answer the question because I do share Jimmi's viewpoint on this one, but I do not enjoy all the nonsense back and forth. The difference between the ethnic cleansing of the Uyghurs and what Israel is doing in Palestine is a question of finality. The Uyghurs are being eliminated as a culture. They are being completely wiped out. They have no land to call their own. No government to call their own. Their people are rounded up and re-educated to remove their religion and culture. At the end of it, there likely will not be a Uyghur identity left. Israel is at war with Palestine. The US once went to war with Germany, but I don't think it's been called an ethnic cleansing even though we did kill a hell of a lot of Germans. The Palestinian identity has not been wiped out and I don't see any real plans to do so. The Palestinian people are currently being shoved off of a large portion of Gaza. If that situations becomes permanent, then it would be an ethnic cleansing of that land (but not the Palestinian identity). However, every real peace plan involves giving that land (or most of it) back to the Palestinians. Their identity is not going to be wiped out. Even within Israel, Arab Israelis get to practice their own faith. They get to keep their own customs. They are given rights by the government. They get to keep their identity. So even in the case that Israel does completely annex Palestine, the Palestinian identity will not be wiped out.That's the difference.
Belated thanks for the reply by the way!
There’s less contingence on particular desire to fully get rid of a particular ethnic or cultural group, or that finality to apply the ethnic cleansing term.
1. It’s a process, less a binary state, where you’ve done something, or you haven’t. And thus intent is also less important too, although not irrelevant: .
2. I’d say its usage can be untethered from ethnic hatred and merely cover some ethnic or cultural superiority in whatever form.
I think it’s these two that somewhat differentiate it from genocide, a term I rather studiously avoid employing in this topic, for those reasons. Intent is at its core, and in a crude sense it’s also something you either do, or you don’t.
Per the Uighur example, if the Chinese reversed policy and stopped tomorrow, have they committed genocide? I mean no, they haven’t, despite there being a rather clear intent, and proscribed policy to eventually get there. I’d still consider, if that process continues unabated that at some point eventually, genocide may well occur, but in the here and now it has yet to, but is certainly ethnic cleasning in the here and now as per my understanding.
As per point 2, by this I mean you don’t have to try to or want to wipe out an ethnicity or a culture, you can merely believe your rights to a particular area trump their claim and gradually force that group from said area. Good old-fashioned colonialism certainly has a decent crossover into outright genocide of various kinds, but even when it didn’t it still, almost invariably saw at least some degree of ethnic cleansing. There’s a kind of de facto element to it, hey rich folks may not actively want to displace poor folks via gentrification, but ultimately them moving in does do that in terms of material effect.
Lazily lifting from Wikipedia
The Final Report of the Commission of Experts established pursuant to Security Council Resolution 780 defined ethnic cleansing as:
a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas", [noting that in the former Yugoslavia] " 'ethnic cleansing' has been carried out by means of murder, torture, arbitrary arrest and detention, extra-judicial executions, rape and sexual assaults, confinement of civilian population in ghetto areas, forcible removal, displacement and deportation of civilian population, deliberate military attacks or threats of attacks on civilians and civilian areas, and wanton destruction of property. Those practices constitute crimes against humanity and can be assimilated to specific war crimes. Furthermore, such acts could also fall within the meaning of the Genocide Convention.
Certainly not the whole story, as you’ve laid out in your post but it rather does tick a fair few boxes, whether one ultimately deigns to consider the term appropriate here or not.
As per the point of yours, yeah that is a good point, oft-made but bears repeating. I guess questions following on from that to folks more knowledgeable:
1. Are Israeli Arabs and Palestinians really particularly interchangeable groups of people? I’m assuming significant overlap but that there’s at least some divergence.
2. What is the breakdown thru enshrined legal equality, thru the impact of economic resources via policy thru everyday social interactions in terms of actual conditional equality? An area I’m curious in but must confess ignorance.
3. In terms of political organisation, what influence do Israeli Arabs exert as a bloc, or is it quite diffuse and scattered? From what I’ve read in the past they certainly don’t fall in with the general right on Palestine anyway, but generally aren’t massive militant Palestinian nationalists either.
The point I’m getting to slowly is what if a different national identity as opposed to religious, or other cultural practice is also a key component of a group’s identity, with all the potential hurdles that brings?
Historically 100% the British absolutely did have issues with various facets of Irishness, and there was real codified anti-Irish/Catholic policies and gerrymandering until the relatively recent past. But from the 20th Century on the main issue the British state had, or Joe and Jane living here of a certain persuasion really wasn’t Irish cultural or religious identity at all, but Irish nationalism and a desire for an Irish state.
Getting a bit off-topic here I suppose, but I think one can have a world where an Arab/Muslim identity is respected in Israel in a different degree to a Palestinian one.
In the long and short, not meaning to go for a cop out but I feel the combination of all three oft-used terms as per Israel, namely colonialism, genocide and apartheid all almost fit, but not quite 100%
I’m happy not splitting hairs on such technicalities provided others don’t employ ‘Shrodinger’s Palestinian’ too much, which I find a rather disingenuous practice. Not an accusation on this thread incidentally, just a general observation.
Cheers again for the response and looking forward to others to my various questions from this meandering ramble
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