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The Israel-Palestine Conflict Mk.III

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Reply 9000
Avatar for rugg
rugg
Original post by Enderof
I just ask you to read about the modern History of Saudi Arabia. It's not this entity that has never changed that you're imagining. I admit it was never a liberal, tolerant land, although it was once pagan and had huge idols around the Kabah.
I am always impressed by how polytheistic societes seem to be, by nature, more tolerant than monotheistic ones

while, in polytheistic systems, there is always room for one God more, in monotheistic societies you have usually a "jealous God" who does not allow anyone beside him... so, one could say that polytheism is democratic, while monotheism discriminates and oppresses minorities
Reply 9001
Avatar for GPODT
GPODT
16
Original post by felamaslen
If the year were 1948, I would agree with you and say Israel should be set up in some North-western corner of the United States, perhaps, or better yet, Germany.

But this is the real world, and despite the above, Israel needs defending because its enemies are theocrats and tyrants, whereas, in comparison Israel is a free country.


What a fantastic democratic country Israel is. A country where Black women were given birth control without their knowledge or consent (as per secret government policy), a country where a minister openly called for a holocaust to be inflicted upon Palestinians, a country where the interior minister called for Gaza to be sent back to the Middle Ages via aerial bombardment, a country where in certain areas buses are segregated by race etc
Original post by GPODT
What a fantastic democratic country Israel is. A country where Black women were given birth control without their knowledge or consent (as per secret government policy), a country where a minister openly called for a holocaust to be inflicted upon Palestinians, a country where the interior minister called for Gaza to be sent back to the Middle Ages via aerial bombardment, a country where in certain areas buses are segregated by race etc


Do you not understand the meaning of the word "comparison"? Did I claim Israel was perfect?
Original post by rugg
I am always impressed by how polytheistic societes seem to be, by nature, more tolerant than monotheistic ones

while, in polytheistic systems, there is always room for one God more, in monotheistic societies you have usually a "jealous God" who does not allow anyone beside him... so, one could say that polytheism is democratic, while monotheism discriminates and oppresses minorities


I agree; if I had to choose a kind of theism, it would definitely be some sort of polytheism. Monotheism just seems to me like dictatorship more than anything else.
Reply 9004
Avatar for GPODT
GPODT
16
Original post by felamaslen
Do you not understand the meaning of the word "comparison"? Did I claim Israel was perfect?


Do you? I simply pointed out that if you scratch below the surface Israel is not exactly much different (in terms of tolerance) from its so-called theocratic neighbours.
Original post by GPODT
Do you? I simply pointed out that if you scratch below the surface Israel is not exactly much different (in terms of tolerance) from its so-called theocratic neighbours.


It has elections, it has free speech and it has religious freedom. It is totally different. When people discover things like the birth control scandal you mentioned, everybody is outraged. It is anomalous behaviour which we do not expect. When Saudi Arabia hangs somebody in public for some insane and petty reason, it's just an every day occurrence which we don't think twice about.
(edited 10 years ago)
Original post by felamaslen
How ironic, claiming that Israel is the one which barges its way in, when in reality it was Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Iraq which barged their way into the tiny state of Israel, not only in 1948 but also in 1967 and again in 1973, with the intention (no doubt) of destroying it. In fact it is these unjustified wars which gained Israel the territory that you speak of. Whatever crimes Israel has committed are eclipsed by the fact that Israel is a free society and its opponents are not. Surely you must agree that this is by far the most important thing?

I suspect you don't really know what a theocracy or a tyranny really is.

This kind of inherently futile, tit-for-tat moralising always reminds me of the following segment, from 4'40" onwards:

(edited 10 years ago)
Original post by Profesh
This kind of inherently futile, tit-for-tat moralising always reminds me of the following segment, from 4'40" onwards:



I'm quite busy so I apologise if I didn't watch enough of the video to respond properly, but I watched from 4:40 on, for about a minute.

He was talking about immigration, mocking people who blame immigration for the country's problems. I'm with him on that; I support free movement of people too. I don't really see how this relates to what I said about Israel, so you may wish to fill me in on exactly what you meant by this video.
Original post by felamaslen
I'm quite busy so I apologise if I didn't watch enough of the video to respond properly, but I watched from 4:40 on, for about a minute.

He was talking about immigration, mocking people who blame immigration for the country's problems. I'm with him on that; I support free movement of people too. I don't really see how this relates to what I said about Israel, so you may wish to fill me in on exactly what you meant by this video.

The part beginning 8'45" is probably more apposite.
Original post by Profesh
The part beginning 8'45" is probably more apposite.


I'm sorry, I still don't get the connection, you may need to spell it out.

Perhaps you misunderstood my original point.

Wait, are you accusing the anti-Israel people of being like UKIP, opposing the new arrivals of Jews?
(edited 10 years ago)
Original post by felamaslen
I'm sorry, I still don't get the connection, you may need to spell it out.

Perhaps you misunderstood my original point.


It was more in relation to your sparring partner, whose geopolitical memory appears to span an arbitrary time-frame of no more than a hundred years, prior to which one can only surmise that all territorial claims would have been mandated, sanctioned and ratified by God himself. I felt that Stewart Lee's reductio ad absurdum served rather concisely to illustrate why such a stance (e.g. regarding Israel with respect to the Middle East) must be considered laughably hypocritical.
Original post by Profesh
It was more in relation to your sparring partner, whose geopolitical memory appears to span an arbitrary time-frame of no more than a hundred years, prior to which one can only surmise that all territorial claims would have been mandated, sanctioned and ratified by God himself. I felt that Stewart Lee's reductio ad absurdum served rather concisely to illustrate why such a stance (e.g. regarding Israel with respect to the Middle East) must be considered laughably hypocritical.


Right, so just to clarify... you're on my side? :tongue:
Original post by GPODT
What a fantastic democratic country Israel is. A country where Black women were given birth control without their knowledge or consent (as per secret government policy), a country where a minister openly called for a holocaust to be inflicted upon Palestinians, a country where the interior minister called for Gaza to be sent back to the Middle Ages via aerial bombardment, a country where in certain areas buses are segregated by race etc



Original post by felamaslen
Do you not understand the meaning of the word "comparison"? Did I claim Israel was perfect?


You don't even need to bring comparison into it, since the above rant is almost total bull****.
Reply 9013
Avatar for GPODT
GPODT
16
Original post by AdvanceAndVanquish
You don't even need to bring comparison into it, since the above rant is almost total bull****.


Lol do your research. Everything I mentioned in that post is factually correct.
as a previous poster mentioned ( and the OP curiously forgot to mention :rofl: ) the "gun" is a water cannon. a big water pistol if you like.
Original post by GPODT
Lol do your research. Everything I mentioned in that post is factually correct.


Hardly. It is a mixture of outright lies, distortions, and half-truths. For example, the suggestion that there are racially-segregated buses in Israel is an outright lie. The birth-control accusation is a serious distortion, as per the link below. Meanwhile, the accusation that a minister called for a 'holocaust' is a distortion on a number of levels, mainly based around deliberate mistranslation of the Hebrew terms. If you want a near-perfect comparison it would be as if someone in Norther Ireland said "there will be trouble" and it was reported that he "threatened to restart the Troubles." There is more, but this is a neat showcase of some of the lies and distortions involved.


http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/brendanoneill2/100200874/how-true-is-it-that-israel-deceitfully-gave-ethiopian-jews-birth-control-injections/
Reply 9016
Avatar for GPODT
GPODT
16
Original post by AdvanceAndVanquish
Hardly. It is a mixture of outright lies, distortions, and half-truths. For example, the suggestion that there are racially-segregated buses in Israel is an outright lie. The birth-control accusation is a serious distortion, as per the link below. Meanwhile, the accusation that a minister called for a 'holocaust' is a distortion on a number of levels, mainly based around deliberate mistranslation of the Hebrew terms. If you want a near-perfect comparison it would be as if someone in Norther Ireland said "there will be trouble" and it was reported that he "threatened to restart the Troubles." There is more, but this is a neat showcase of some of the lies and distortions involved.


http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/brendanoneill2/100200874/how-true-is-it-that-israel-deceitfully-gave-ethiopian-jews-birth-control-injections/



About six weeks ago, on an Educational Television program journalist Gal Gabbay revealed the results of interviews with 35 Ethiopian immigrants. The women’s testimony could help explain the almost 50-percent decline over the past 10 years in the birth rate of Israel’s Ethiopian community. According to the program, while the women were still in transit camps in Ethiopia they were sometimes intimidated or threatened into taking the injection. “They told us they are inoculations,” said one of the women interviewed. “They told us people who frequently give birth suffer. We took it every three months. We said we didn’t want to.”


Source: http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/israel-admits-ethiopian-women-were-given-birth-control-shots.premium-1.496519


Regarding the racial segregation:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/9906113/Israel-launches-Palestinian-only-buses-amid-accusations-of-racial-segregation.html

The Israeli interior minister said:

On 17 November 2012, Yishai stated about Israel's Operation Pillar of Defense in Gaza: "The goal of the operation is to send Gaza back to the Middle Ages. Only then will Israel be calm for forty years." He also was quoted as saying “We must blow Gaza back to the Middle Ages, destroying all the infrastructure including roads and water.”
Original post by GPODT


And you should probably actually read this article. Nowhere is there anything approaching 'racial segregation,' which you would know if you read beyond the headline.
Reply 9018
Avatar for GPODT
GPODT
16
Original post by AdvanceAndVanquish

And you should probably actually read this article. Nowhere is there anything approaching 'racial segregation,' which you would know if you read beyond the headline.


What do YOU call the separation of Arabs and Jews on public transport?
Original post by GPODT
What do YOU call the separation of Arabs and Jews on public transport?


Except that's not what it is. The division on this one specific bus line (as much as there is any division, since it's not actually legally mandated), is not between Arabs and Jews, but between Palestinian Authority residents coming into Israel to work, and Israelis, which includes the 1.5 million Arabs with Israeli ID cards, among myriad others. This is 'racial segregation' in the same way that making EU and non EU passport holders go through separate lines when coming into Heathrow is 'racial segregation,' i.e. it's not.
(edited 10 years ago)

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