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[value]

I am not into politics but recent news items made me wonder what happened with regard the vision that I noticed in the film You Don't Mess with the Zohan by Adam Sandler.

In the film "You Don't Mess with the Zohan," Adam Sandler plays an Israeli spy named Zohan Dvir who fakes his own death to pursue his dream of becoming a hairstylist in New York City. While in New York, he meets a Palestinian girl named Dalia and falls in love with her. Although not official, the film might have been intended to spur the ending of the violence between Israeli and Palestinian people. The marriage between Zohan and Dalia may be seen as a symbol of unity between Israelis and Palestinians.

The film offers a satirical solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that goes beyond two states, suggesting that Israelis and Palestinians can flourish together side by side by realizing how much they have in common and toiling toward the same goals.

There are rumors that Adam Sandler was in love with a Palestinian girl in real life.

(2018) ‘You Don’t Mess With the Zohan’ was Adam Sandler’s liberal Zionist manifesto
Whatever else you can say about the somewhat mixed legacy of his work, you certainly can’t question Adam Sandler’s credentials as an avatar of Jewish cultural pride. Chalk that up to his famous Hanukkah song, which name-checked an array of famous Jews, his Hanukkah-themed animated comedy “Eight Crazy Nights” and the 2008 film “You Don’t Mess With the Zohan.”

In “Zohan,” Sandler played an elite and legendary Israeli soldier who longs for a peaceful life. The film, which was released 10 years ago this week, was full of in-jokes about Jews and Israel — hummus practically serves as a supporting character — but it also actually expressed a liberal Zionist viewpoint that continues to disappear from modern Mideast discourse.

Gil Troy wrote that the film’s “happy ending comes when our hero abandons his country and his identity, joining the all-American intermarried mélange.”

“Zohan” coherently expresses a liberal Zionist worldview. Today, Israel is increasingly becoming a wedge issue — conservatives are expected to support Israel and all of its actions unconditionally, while liberals are expected to condemn all that Zionism stands for. This leaves liberal Zionists, or those wishing for a peaceful two-state solution and a more left-wing Israeli government, without much of a political home.

So much discourse about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict these days is either framed in terms of Israel heroically defending itself from invading hordes or heartlessly carrying out massacres — views that are simplistically whittled down to terms like “pro-Israel” and “anti-Israel.” “You Don’t Mess With the Zohan” shows us something we rarely see anymore in media or culture: an Israeli hero who is proud of his country and heritage and wants the best for both, but is also sick of fighting and desires peaceful coexistence.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/you-dont- ... manifesto/

About the conflict

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a complex and long-running conflict between two self-determination movements, the Jewish Zionist project and the Palestinian nationalist project, both claiming the same territory.

Some key points about the conflict:

1. The conflict dates back to the end of the nineteenth century and has endured since the mid-20th century.
2. In 1947, the United Nations adopted Resolution 181, known as the Partition Plan, which aimed to divide the British Mandate of Palestine into Arab and Jewish states. On May 14, 1948, the State of Israel was created, leading to the first Arab-Israeli War.
3. The war ended in 1949 with Israel's victory, but it resulted in the displacement of 750,000 Palestinians and the division of the territory into three parts.
4. The conflict has seen various attempts to resolve it as part of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and broader Arab-Israeli conflict.
5. The conflict has been marked by periods of violence and military confrontations, such as the clashes in the Palestinian territories in 2014, which led to a major offensive in Gaza.
6. The history of the conflict is complicated and has been the subject of ongoing debate and litigation between the two sides.

Overall, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a deeply entrenched and multifaceted conflict with historical, political, and territorial dimensions. It continues to be a highly contentious and unresolved issue in the Middle East.

What is your opinion on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the vision communicated in the film Zohan?

[Good_Egg]

There will never be peace as long as children are brought up with the narrative that history entitles them to something they don't have.

History is full of wars. A war is only truly over when those who identify with the losing side accept that it's over and move on.

We can only dream of a better world in which grudges are not inheritable.

[value]

Perhaps philosophy can provide a solution.

Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Lévinas - an icon of Western philosophy that is researched by dedicated scholars today - wrote the following about peace in his moral philosophy named Totality and Infinity, which is commonly referenced to as "Ethics as First Philosophy".

Of peace there can only be an eschatology.

"Politics is opposed to morality, as philosophy to naiveté. The moral consciousness can sustain the mocking gaze of the political man only if the certitude of peace dominates the evidence of war. Such a certitude is not obtained by a simple play of antitheses. The peace of empires issued from war rests on war."

Morality will oppose politics in history and will have gone beyond the functions of prudence or the canons of the beautiful to proclaim itself unconditional and universal when the eschatology of messianic peace will have come to superpose itself upon the ontology of war.

Philosophers distrust it. To be sure they profit from it to announce peace also; they deduce a final peace from the reason that plays out its stakes in ancient and present-day wars; they found morality oin politics. But for them eschatology - a subjective and arbitrary divination of the future, the result of a revelation without evidences, tributary of faith - belongs naturally to Opinion.

However, the extraordinary phenomenon of prophetic eschatology certainly does not intend to win its civic rights within the domain of thought by being assimilated to a philosophical evidence. In religions and even in theologies eschatology, like an oracle, does indeed seem to "complete" philosophical evidences; its beliefs-conjectures mean to be more certain than the evidences - as though eschatology added information about the future by revealing the finality of being. But when reduced to the evidences, eschatology would then already accept the ontology of totality issued from war. Its real import lies elsewhere. It does not introduce a teleological system into the totality; it does not consist in teaching the orientation of history. Eschatology institutes a relation with being beyond the totality or beyond history, and not with being beyond the past or the present. Not with the void that would surround the totality and where one could, arbitrarily, think what one likes, and thus promote the claims of a subjectivity free as the wind. It is a relationship with a a surplus always exterior to the totality, as though the objective totality did not fill out the true measure of being, as though another concept, the concept of infinity, where needed to express this transcendence with regard to totality, non-encompassable within a totality and as primordial as totality.

This "beyond" the totality and objective experience is, however, not to be described in a purely negative fashion. It is reflected within experience. The eschatological, as the "beyond" of history, draws beings out of the jurisdiction of history and the future; it arouses them in and calls them forth to their full responsibility.

Submitting history as a whole to judgment, exterior to the very wars that mark its end, it restores to each instant its full signification in that very instant; all the causes are ready to be heard. It is not the last judgement that is decisive, but the judgement of all the instants in time, when the living are judged. The eschatological notion of judgement implies that beings have an identity "before" eternity, before the accomplishment of history, before the fullness of time, while there is still time; implies that beings exist in relationship, to be sure, but on the basis of themselves and not on the basis of the totality. The idea of being overflowing history makes possible existents both involved in being and personal, called upon to answer as their trial and consequently already adult - but, for that very reason, existents that can speak rather than lending their lips to an anonymous utterance of history.

Peace is produced as this aptitude for speech. The eschatological vision breaks with the totality of wars and empires in which one does not speak. It does not envisage the end of history within being understood as a totality, but institutes a relation with the infinity of being which exceeds the totality.

The first "vision" of eschatology (hereby distinguished from the revealed opinions of positive religions) reveals the very possibility of eschatology, that is, the breach of the totality, the possibility of a signification without context. The experience of morality does not proceed from this vision - it consummates this vision; ethics is an optics. But it is a vision without image, bereft of the synoptics and totalizing objectifying virtues of vision, a relation or an intentionality of a wholly different type - which this work seeks to describe."

Emmanuel Levinas is one of the greatest thinkers of the twentieth, but the complexity of his thought, as well as Heidegger’s, prevents a real spread / democratization of his work. One of his most important works is Totality and Infinity: An essay on exteriority. In the latter, Levinas, according to a phenomenological method, describes how subjectivity arises from the idea of ​​infinity, and how infinite is a product of the relationship of self to another.
https://www.the-philosophy.com/levinas- ... ty-summary
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/levinas/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totality_and_Infinity

Emmanuel Levinas was born in Lithuania. He shortly fled to Ukraine during the war and then moved to France where he ultimately became a philosophy professor at the University of Paris. Levinas lost family and friends to the Nazis.

Philosopher Seth Paskin, one of the hosts of the podcast Partially Examined Life, studied Martin Heidegger in Freiburg, Germany, and later dedicated to Levinas.

Episode 145: Emmanuel Levinas: Why Be Ethical?
https://partiallyexaminedlife.com/2016/ ... 1-levinas/

The following free ebook by the Dutch professor Adriaan Peperzak (University of Chicago) who is specialized in the history of Levinas, provides an insight in the history of Levinas.

To the Other: Introduction to the Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas
https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/purduepress_ebooks/20/

Levinas was a Zionist who saw Israel as the salvation for the Jewish people after the Holocaust, but he was also a member of the peace movement. In an interview, Levinas mentioned that "one must be on the side of the weak", which could be interpreted as a call for solidarity with the Palestinians.

In a 1982 radio interview following the Sabra and Shatila massacre in Lebanon, Levinas was asked about his stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict. He did not openly criticize Israel's actions but instead spoke about generalities concerning the ethics of responsibility. This led some critics to question whether Levinas considered Palestinians as the "Other" in his ethical framework and if Israel was responsible for them as a matter of principle.

[value]

For the record, considering recent events:

"Jewish rabbi: We are with the Palestinian government and the Palestinian people. Before the occupation of Palestine by the Zionists, the Jews lived in peace and harmony with the Muslims. Our wish is the re-establishment of the Palestinian state."

Jewish rabbi
rabbi.png (315.82 KiB) Viewed 5729 times

Video: https://twitter.com/Sprinter99800/statu ... 7282458959

Also for the record...

Norway was secretly and independently leading peace talks in Libya and promoted anti-war policy that could have dragged countries into anti-war politics.

Norway was close to a peaceful end of the Libya situation.

(2021) The secret Norwegian peace talks that nearly prevented Libya’s 2011 war
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... 19095.html

Then in 2011, an apparent terrorism corruption event took place after which the PM of Norway became the head of NATO. Among other things, the office of the PM blew up and eye witnesses have reported that they saw multiple shooters. The event targeted many of the next generation politicians of Norway who were behind the anti-war movement.

Norway then dropped the most bombs of all countries on Libya in 2011 by which over 500.000 innocent people were killed. That is simply illogical.

(2021) NATO Killed Civilians in Libya. It's Time to Admit It.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/03/20/na ... -admit-it/

Some facts for consideration:

1. NATO was present in a secret spy operation in Oslo since 18 months before the terror attack in 2011 and the Minister of Justice of Norway later said that 'he didn't knew'.
2. After the terror attack the Prime Minister of Norway became the head of NATO (highest function).
3. Just minutes before the bomb attack on the Prime Minister's office, a special elite police unit concluded training for near identical scenario.
4. Eye witnesses testified that there were multiple shooters. They also clearly describe the person that they had seen.

A detailed report: https://gmodebate.org/libya/

As for history supporting this 'conspiracy'... During the Cold War, NATO carried out terrorist attacks in European cities under the name Operation Gladio, for which left-wing groups were falsely blamed. The attacks were intended to create an atmosphere of fear.

It's on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio

[Pattern-chaser]

I think this situation cannot easily be resolved because of what it is not.

It is not a religious conflict, but a geopolitical one.
It is not "anti-Semitic", as both sides — the indigenous members thereof! — are descended from the ancient Semite tribe (and others too).
It is not Palestine versus Israel, it is Palestine versus the USA, the most terrible War Machine the world has ever known.
It is not "terrorism" to attempt to free your land and people from a brutal military occupation by foreign forces.

[Good_Egg]

It is not "terrorism" to attempt to free your land and people from a brutal military occupation by foreign forces.

You're looking at it the wrong way.

Whether a particular act does or does not constitute terrorism does not depend on the justice or otherwise of the cause that you're fighting for. "Terrorism" is a descriptor of means, not ends.

If your means involves deliberately murdering civilians in order to put pressure on decision-makers, then you're a terrorist. Regardless of what end you are seeking to bring about.

The recent Hamas attacks were of no military value. Never intended to improve the Palestinian situation militarily or economically. The whole point was to provoke Israeli reprisals so that they can say to the Muslim Arab world "look at how brutal Israel is being to us". To renew and keep fresh the feelings of hate.

[Sculptor1]

It is not "terrorism" to attempt to free your land and people from a brutal military occupation by foreign forces.

You're looking at it the wrong way.

Yes, that's what the IDF say when they arbitrarily beat up random Palestinians.
Being state sponsored, they claim, they cannot be "terrorists".
Urumph.
How can Isreal justify the 1900 people they have already killed this week, and claim that Hamas is wrong to attackt the inncent?

[Pattern-chaser]

It is not "terrorism" to attempt to free your land and people from a brutal military occupation by foreign forces.

You're looking at it the wrong way.

Whether a particular act does or does not constitute terrorism does not depend on the justice or otherwise of the cause that you're fighting for. "Terrorism" is a descriptor of means, not ends.

If your means involves deliberately murdering civilians in order to put pressure on decision-makers, then you're a terrorist. Regardless of what end you are seeking to bring about.

The recent Hamas attacks were of no military value. Never intended to improve the Palestinian situation militarily or economically. The whole point was to provoke Israeli reprisals so that they can say to the Muslim Arab world "look at how brutal Israel is being to us". To renew and keep fresh the feelings of hate.

I believe "terrorism" is about only the end(s), not the means. If one acts in a way intended to cause terror in one's victims, one is a terrorist. That seems pretty clear and simple to me.

The words we use to describe people are chosen for many reasons — human, subjective, reasons and beliefs.

I find that comparing the Palestinian activists and World War 2's French Resistance is useful. The latter are remembered by human history (written by the victors, of course) as heroes and heroines. They struggled against overwhelming odds to rid their land of a brutal military occupation. And they struck at the enemy in any and every way that was within their means. But we do not remember them as terrorists, although they seem to conform to the definition of the word, because we 'balance' their actions against (what we see as) the injustice of their enemy's position/actions. And the result of our 'balancing' is to conclude that their actions were laudable and reasonable.

I also see the Palestinians in this light.

[Consul]

How can Isreal justify the 1900 people they have already killed this week, and claim that Hamas is wrong to attackt the inncent?

There is no symmetry of guilt, because there is a big difference between the deliberate terrorist mass-murdering of innocent people and the unintentional killing of innocent people as regrettable yet unavoidable "collateral damage" in the context of justified counterterrorist military action. If Hamas hadn't attacked the Israelis, the innocent Palestinians unintentionally killed by the Israeli army would still be alive; so Hamas are ultimately responsible for their death.

[Sculptor1]

How can Isreal justify the 1900 people they have already killed this week, and claim that Hamas is wrong to attackt the inncent?

There is no symmetry of guilt, because there is a big difference between the deliberate terrorist mass-murdering of innocent people and the unintentional killing of innocent people as regrettable yet unavoidable "collateral damage" in the context of justified counterterrorist military action. If Hamas hadn't attacked the Israelis, the innocent Palestinians unintentionally killed by the Israeli army would still be alive; so Hamas are ultimately responsible for their death.

RUbbish.
Netanyahu has been waiting fo this moment. He was even forewarned and did nothing to stop it.
This is what he wants - the slaughter bit by bit and genocide of the Palestinian people.
You talk of symmetry??
"Unavoidable collateral" damage?? LOL naive in the extreme.

800 children killed and counting.

[Consul]

There is no symmetry of guilt, because there is a big difference between the deliberate terrorist mass-murdering of innocent people and the unintentional killing of innocent people as regrettable yet unavoidable "collateral damage" in the context of justified counterterrorist military action. If Hamas hadn't attacked the Israelis, the innocent Palestinians unintentionally killed by the Israeli army would still be alive; so Hamas are ultimately responsible for their death.

RUbbish.
Netanyahu has been waiting fo this moment. He was even forewarned and did nothing to stop it.
This is what he wants - the slaughter bit by bit and genocide of the Palestinian people.
You talk of symmetry??
"Unavoidable collateral" damage?? LOL naive in the extreme.

800 children killed and counting.

Yea, as we all know, the Jews love to kill children and to drink their blood. *DUH!*

There are things in Netanyahu's right-wing politics that deserve to be condemned (particularly his attack on the democratic separation of powers); but that he and his government are planning and implementing a "genocide of the Palestinian people" is a ridiculous conspiracy theory. What is a reality and anything but a conspiracy theory is that Hamas expressly intends to eliminate the state of Israel and to expel the Jews from their homeland (or "Palestine", as Hamas would say).

The human collateral damage among innocent Palestinians is unavoidable by the Israeli army given the demographic situation in (the) Gaza (Strip), which is shamelessly (mis)used by Hamas for their tactical advantage. They, and not the Israelis, are the ones who don't give a damn about how many innocent Palestinians die. They are even satanically happy about large numbers of dead innocent Palestinians, because they add grist to their propaganda mill.

If you seriously think there is a moral symmetry between the terrorism of Hamas and the counterterrorism of the Israeli army, or even a moral asymmetry in favor of Hamas, you really need to adjust your moral compass!

[Sculptor1]

There is no symmetry of guilt, because there is a big difference between the deliberate terrorist mass-murdering of innocent people and the unintentional killing of innocent people as regrettable yet unavoidable "collateral damage" in the context of justified counterterrorist military action. If Hamas hadn't attacked the Israelis, the innocent Palestinians unintentionally killed by the Israeli army would still be alive; so Hamas are ultimately responsible for their death.

RUbbish.
Netanyahu has been waiting fo this moment. He was even forewarned and did nothing to stop it.
This is what he wants - the slaughter bit by bit and genocide of the Palestinian people.
You talk of symmetry??
"Unavoidable collateral" damage?? LOL naive in the extreme.

800 children killed and counting.

Yea, as we all know, the Jews love to kill children and to drink their blood. *DUH!*

You ought to know better than to make such a stupid insulting comment.
If you cant play nice you need to run along and take a long walk, preferably off a long pier.

There are things in Netanyahu's right-wing politics that deserve to be condemned (particularly his attack on the democratic separation of powers); but that he and his government are planning and implementing a "genocide of the Palestinian people" is a ridiculous conspiracy theory. What is a reality and anything but a conspiracy theory is that Hamas expressly intends to eliminate the state of Israel and to expel the Jews from their homeland (or "Palestine", as Hamas would say).

The human collateral damage among innocent Palestinians is unavoidable by the Israeli army given the demographic situation in (the) Gaza (Strip), which is shamelessly (mis)used by Hamas for their tactical advantage. They, and not the Israelis, are the ones who don't give a damn about how many innocent Palestinians die. They are even satanically happy about large numbers of dead innocent Palestinians, because they add grist to their propaganda mill.

If you seriously think there is a moral symmetry between the terrorism of Hamas and the counterterrorism of the Israeli army, or even a moral asymmetry in favor of Hamas, you really need to adjust your moral compass!

One man's terrorists is another man's freedom fighter
One mans innocent victim is another man's "collateral damage."
You are ridiculous.

[Consul]

Yea, as we all know, the Jews love to kill children and to drink their blood. *DUH!*

You ought to know better than to make such a stupid insulting comment.
If you cant play nice you need to run along and take a long walk, preferably off a long pier.

Come on, can't you stomach a piece of sarcasm?!

…If you seriously think there is a moral symmetry between the terrorism of Hamas and the counterterrorism of the Israeli army, or even a moral asymmetry in favor of Hamas, you really need to adjust your moral compass!

One man's terrorists is another man's freedom fighter
One mans innocent victim is another man's "collateral damage."
You are ridiculous.

No, you are irresponsibly relativizing and thereby excusing Hamas's barbaric crimes!

[Consul]

800 children killed and counting.

Were those Palestinian children deliberately murdered by the Israeli army as direct targets of its military action? – NO!
Who is ultimately responsible for their death? – HAMAS!

[Consul]

One man's terrorists is another man's freedom fighter
One mans innocent victim is another man's "collateral damage."
You are ridiculous.

No, you are irresponsibly relativizing and thereby excusing Hamas's barbaric crimes!

I find your "terrorism is in the eye of the beholder" sort of moral relativism outrageous.