Israeli Air Strike

[Churchill]

Pay me money and I'll kill some jews

[Elvis]

Pay me money and I'll kill some jews

Doesn't count, this is just you being you.

[Churchill]

Oh, well then I love Obama because he's going to abide by the Constitution.

[Elvis]

Well done, sir.

[Kiro]

Welcome to the United Snakes. Land of the thief, home of the slave. The Grand Imperial Guard where the dollar is sacred and power is god.


I'm not doing it right am I?

[Neosutra]

I am sorry to say, wether by laziness or sheer apathy, I dont know much about the history of the Isreal/Palestine conflict other than both sides wanted to control 1 peice of land for religious or political gain. I know it isnt the right attitude to have, but I could really care less what happens to any nation in the middle east (having been deployed their once and going back again). I dont see a valid or reasonable solution for palestine or isreal assuming neither wants to give on the claim. Other than the peace traeties with a few of the other arab states, what is holding isreal back from officially conquering these people and ending this crap?

[Hellfury]

There's very few of the Israeli and a lot of everyone else?

[Elvis]

I don't know. They have the firepower. It will just happen slowly. Look at any map of Israel-Palestine from before the 48' war to now. It's just like a map of colonial America.

The Palestinians are basically the Native Americans. Except now we have international law/the UN/etc. Popular activism and the accessibility of information has mitigated the extent to which a 'civilized' country will exercise brute force.

In the US you have to lie to the public to gain support for such wars (see: Bush Senior's leaked foreign policy briefing in the NYTimes circa. 1989-1991).

In Israel, most of the public is right-wing. They want peace but I recall from recent polling that they don't want to give up the West Bank and refuse dismantling of any of the settlements.

The Palestinians have already ended up trapped in a bantustan model akin to South African apartheid. I don't see anything else happening. Israel won't give up enough land for a viable State and the Palestinians won't accept nothing less.

Personally, it's well within their right to resist. They're being colonized.

There's another solution: the demographic reality. This is disputed though. Israeli sources say it's no big deal. Everyone else (roughly) says that in 20 years or so the Palestinian population (within the OT and Israel proper) will once again surpass the Jewish Israelis.

This doesn't take into account the nearly 5 million Palestinian refugees.

[Neosutra]

Well, to be brutally honest: If you are a people w/o a government and w/o the ability to really resist, why shouldnt you be conquered?

edit: To be clear, I dont mean genocide, by conquered I mean essentially made a part of isreal. You dont get to say "but this is my land" if you cant defend it.

[Kiro]

You don't get to say this is your land if you can't defend it? I'm all for survival of the fittest, but that seems a bit unfair, lol.

[pohibaba]

Well, to be brutally honest: If you are a people w/o a government and w/o the ability to really resist, why shouldnt you be conquered?

That's not how the world works anymore; we have international law now. This thinking was the rationale for world wide empires and colonization. Taking land through warfare is illegal and immoral.

[Elvis]

The Israelis do not want a One-State solution. This is Zionism.

A Jewish State. A Jewish majority. If you allow the Palestinians in the OT to become a part of Israel then you lose that majority. Eventually, the Jewish State disintegrates.

Hence, why Israel continues to build settlements. Hence, the occupation. Etc. etc.

I agree with what Pohibaba wrote as well.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the 'demographic threat' :

"If there is a demographic problem, and there is, it is with the Israeli Arabs who will remain Israeli citizens," he [Prime Minister Netanyahu] said. The Declaration of Independence said Israel should be a Jewish and democratic state, but to ensure the Jewish character was not engulfed by demography, it was necessary to ensure a Jewish majority, he said.

If Israel's Arabs become well integrated and reach 35-40 percent of the population, there will no longer be a Jewish state but a bi-national one, he said. If Arabs remain at 20 percent but relations are tense and violent, this will also harm the state's democratic fabric. "Therefore a policy is needed that will balance the two."

[Kuya]

Wait, so, it's fair to lose things that belong to you if someone stronger takes them from you? Apparently Neosutra does not understand what society was founded on.

[Hellfury]

No, it's pretty clear he understands what it WAS founded on.


Edit: we can tell ourselves what we want about our so-called enlightened societies, but you can't escape the fact that most nations were at one point or the other founded with the help of excessive amounts of violence, and borders/states have always been defined by the ability and will to put force behind the claims made.

The concept/perspectives most people have on nations/societies today is a fairly new one, I prefer the new one, but I can't escape the fact that most our societies weren't build on it.
(although a lot were built on the hope that it would be the last time)

[Elvis]

All men* created Equal!

























*By men, we mean men, not WOmen. By men we mean rich white landowners. LOL@slaves

[Elvis]

No, it's pretty clear he understands what it WAS founded on.


Edit: we can tell ourselves what we want about our so-called enlightened societies, but you can't escape the fact that most nations were at one point or the other founded with the help of excessive amounts of violence, and borders/states have always been defined by the ability and will to put force behind the claims made.

The concept/perspectives most people have on nations/societies today is a fairly new one, I prefer the new one, but I can't escape the fact that most our societies weren't build on it.
(although a lot were built on the hope that it would be the last time)

/nod

I can't think of many Nation-States that weren't formed through bloodshed and atrocities.

Hence, why I think it's so sanctimonious of so-called public intellectuals to denounce groups like Hamas. I personally, don't know enough about them specifically to comment.

But all nationalist movements employ terror. The early Zionists used terror and committed atrocities. The Euro-American colonists did as well.

Everyone from George Washington to Che Guevara has employed these tactics. They all make these grandiose statements and declarations when fighting their 'oppressors'.

Things really haven't changed much.

I think Kurt Vonnegut put it best:

My training is scientific, but I do feel that evolution is being controlled by some sort of divine Engineer. I can't help thinking that. And this Engineer knows exactly what He or she is doing and why and where evolution is headed. That's why we have giraffes and hippopotami and the clap.

Everyone has been so mean about the President lately, as though he had caused the hurricane. He didn't. I'd like to say something good about him: he is not the dumbest man at the top of our government.

The dumbest man at the top of our government is the Secretary of Defense. He is so dumb, he thought he could take over a country and its oil, population 27 million Muslims. He thought he could take it over — and the oil, which is what he was after — with a whole bunch of big BANGs and then 200,000 American soldiers who didn't even know how to say "Hello" in Arabic. What a mess he's made! I've wanted to give Iraq a lesson in democracy, because we're good at it.

In democracy, after a hundred years, you have to let your slaves go, and after 150 years, you have to let your women vote. At the beginning of democracy, quite a bit of genocide and ethnic cleansing is OK, and that's what's going on now.

From The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, 2005-09-13

[Hellfury]

Terrorists are what the big army calls the little army.

-someone, sometime, somewhere

[Zilong]

One country's terrorist is another country's freedom fighter.

[Kuya]

Regardless of whether or not any society was founded on wanton force, i do not think it prudent to promote the idea that you can take whatever you want just because you can , especially if we somehow try to justify that. Are some people hypocrites for saying that you can use force to get what you want sometimes and then turn around and say it's wrong in another moment? Maybe that's the issue you guys are trying to point out.

[Elvis]

Yea, I'm not advocating 'might makes right'. I'm just pointing out my own assessment of one aspect of the Nation-State system throughout history (ex: Nationalist movements employ terror and violence to achieve their goals).

I don't agree with the tactics but I understand the historical parallels. I think if people could compare and contrast conflicts then we'd understand each other better.