US Politics Feedback Thread - Page 314

On May 13 2021 06:55 KwarK wrote:

Multiple countries are talked about. The “why do you only talk about Israel?” talking point has always been wrong and has always been dumb. People are always bitching about American foreign policy, British foreign policy, French foreign policy, and so forth and so forth. India gets shit for starting fights in Kashmir and wanting to wipe out all Muslims. China gets shit for making islands and deciding Vietnam is Chinese territorial waters based on a fake map.

The US is directly complicit in what Israel is doing in a way that doesn’t apply to a lot of other situations. The US subsidizes Israel and provides billions in military aid. That’s why what Israel does with that support is a US political issue. The alleged hypocrisy is a bullshit “whatabout” distraction that exists to give idiots something to say whenever Israel comes up. It doesn’t actually exist.

On May 13 2021 06:54 ChristianS wrote:
National Review has a piece up defending the Israeli settlers’ legal claim to the land being taken (if I’m not mistaken, an East Jerusalem neighborhood called Sheikh Jarrah). Essentially, the argument is that the land was bought by groups of Jews in 1874 under the Ottoman Empire, and lived on by Jews until 1948, when they were forced out by Jordan during the war. Israel retook the area in 1967 but allowed the new Arab residents to stay. But the land still legally belongs to the Jewish families who were driven out as refugees. The article’s chief analogy is to possessions like paintings which were stolen from Jews (and resold, redistributed, etc.) being confiscated from their new owners and returned to the families of their original owners, often many decades after the war.

This is, apparently, the legal claim of the settlers. To GH’s point, it’s worth comparing this procedure to US settlers seizing Native American land. The archetype of US settlers generally involved them showing up with some piece of paper or other legal claim, petitioned for and approved by US citizens and authorities (usually without input from or notification to the actual Native Americans living there), and telling them to get out or face violence.

I don’t think many posters here would say that was a fair and equitable procedure conducted in accordance with principles of rule of law or due process. Enumerating all the problems with it, on the other hand, and defining the “right” way to adjudicate these kinds of disputes is much harder. What would and wouldn’t qualify as a “legitimate” land claim on the parts of settlers? What if they had bought the land legitimately from the tribe that lived there, but then in intervening years a war with another tribe meant that territory now “belonged” to another tribe? What if the tribe sold the land to the state (who auctioned it off) in a treaty, but the treaty was in English and its terms were poorly communicated to the tribe? My moral intuition is that the settlers were generally in the wrong, but exactly why or under what circumstances they would be in the right is not clear.

Probably the more valuable and analogous question: who has the authority to adjudicate a dispute like this? Apparently (at least if NR is to be believed) the settlers have been in litigation on this issue for years, and the case is before the Israeli Supreme Court (NR is quick to point out they’ve won every step of the way, although if it’s still before the Israeli Supreme Court presumably it’s not settled yet). Does the Israeli Supreme Court even have jurisdiction here? If not, who does? Some UN court? ... does anyone?

Meanwhile the Israeli government is accused of quite a few war crimes either directly or tangentially related to this issue. I honestly don’t know the specifics here, either in what they’re accused of, or what the evidence is, or what the legal process is for bringing war crimes to (I assume) the UN. I’ve seen videos of soldiers assaulting what appear to be Muslim crowds engaged in prayer, but I don’t know any context for these incidents. Israel is bombing Gaza, they say in response to Hamas rockets fired at Israel. Is this just a pure case of collective punishment? That sounds pretty straightforwardly illegal under international law to me, but I’m afraid I’m way out of my depth here.

But long story short, it seems pretty clear to me that there’s a clear role and obligation for the international community to intervene here and ensure people’s rights are respected, and that includes the US leaning on our ally to stop the violence and submit to international arbitration of the dispute.

On May 13 2021 07:11 JimmiC wrote:

Nope, it is not. The same way I would be arguing against someone who thought that we should wipe the Palestine's off the map for firing 1000's of rockets into residential area's. Is the Iron dome part of the support the US should remove? Are you fine with the consequences of that?

The issue is not talking about Israel, it is the framing that is the problem.

I also think a lot of the people you think are "idiots" is actually just your incredible arrogance which has created a massive amount of ignorance that leads to you to assume what their intentions or point is. Then because of your massive ego (likely compensating for massive insecurity) it does not allow you to even consider any other perspective.

Specifically, you Kwark, what is your solution? What do you think the consequences of that solution are? And does that bring us to a better a place?



Now a post like this is both informative and asks thought provoking questions as it starts to get into the complexities of the situation. And I agree with the conclusion as well.

On April 30 2022 05:22 Doc.Rivers wrote:


You and many others really, really don't want Joe & Hunter's interlinked finances to be talked about. As more and more documents come out (as is happening on an almost daily basis, and as was shown by the more recent hunter biden discussion in the thread), it will become very clear why dems didn't want the issue to be talked about. The evidence of public corruption is already sitting right out in the open.