Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Pattern-chaser]

"From the river to the sea" simply describes the wish of the Palestinian people to reclaim their own homeland.

From the River to the Sea refers to the erasure of Israel. There's complexity there, but that's the general gist.

If we look at the words, "From the River to the sea, Palestine shall be free", they seem to say what I suggested. I wouldn't've been rash enough to say this off my own bat, but I read a thoughtful and considered piece by an academic Palestinian historian, who explained. It is certainly not supportive of Israel, but it is clear from the words that the slogan is not anti-Israel (or anti-Jewish), but PRO-Palestinian.

I have seen the American propaganda about the erasure of Israel, just as I heard the President of the USA repeat the now-debunked "Hamas behead 40 babies" lie, but there is a war on, and the USA and its Middle East satellite, Israel, are saying and doing what suits their military and political purposes. As ever, the greatest casualties of war are truth and honesty.



[N.B. Although my posts in this topic have mostly been pro-Palestine, I would prefer to offer a more even-handed approach to the discussion. However, in the light of the strongly pro-Israel stance of several commentators, I offer the other side as a complement, a balance.]

[Pattern-chaser]

Can someone desribe to me what the two state solution is? Is it a separate Jewish state co-exisitng with a Palestine state? It appears there are now three independant states: Israel, East Bank, and Gaza. "No encrachment and misssiles" is wishful thinking. Ironically, two states can be fulfilled if you take East Bank and Gaza as one Palestinian state, in which case none can gainsay what only the Palestinian people can decide upon.

In 1947, the United Nations partitioned Palestine, giving 55% to the Jewish population and 45% to the Palestinian population. The indigenous Palestinians rejected the division of the land on which they had lived and farmed for centuries.

At the time of partition, the Jewish population owned less than 6% of Palestine.

It is difficult to see, after the unwise (IMO) partition of Palestine, how any settlement might be found...

[Good_Egg]

I cannot and will not condone killing innocents of any creed or nationality. But any reasonable person can understand the frustration that Palestinians must be enduring, can't they?

Philosophically I ask, what does "condone" mean, here ?

We humans have hearts as well as minds. We can become emotionally invested in ideas. Maybe in order to act on an idea we have to have some emotion behind it; just thinking it true

"Condone" means "Excuse, overlook, or make allowances for; be lenient with", according to my dictionary app. That seems about right.

Yes, that seems a fair definition.

Note that you cannot "condone" what is morally right. If you believe an act to be moral, then there is nothing to excuse or overlook or exercise leniency about.

The concept divides the set of morally-wrong actions into those that are excusable and those that are inexcusable. Those that warrant leniency and those that warrant harsh condemnation and punishment.

It replaces a binary right/wrong with a trinary right/wrong- but-excusable/inexcusably-wrong.

And I'm thinking that aybe that applies regardless of whether you approach right and wrong from the perspective of utilitarianism or rights or any other ethical approach.

...one can sympathise with the situation the Palestinians find themselves in, even though one cannot approve of the atrocities committed by both sides in this conflict. I see no contradiction there.

You're right that there is no contradiction between sympathizing with someone and asserting their actions to be wrong. Partly because one is about thought and the other about emotion. But partly because - as I hope the above discussion of "condoning" shows - we can't help perceiving that there are lesser and greater wrongs. Some wrongs that are more excusable than others.

Seems to me that "condoning" describes your position pretty well.

When I'm thinking about this, I do wonder if I, or any reasonable person, could or would do what has been done?

Do you mean what was done in 1948 ? Or this year ?

Seems to me that responding with greater force to an attack on one's nation (that is the latest and strongest in a series of such attacks) is something that any reasonable person could do.

But rekindling a war which one's own side can only lose is not something that a reasonable person could or would do.

[Consul]

From the River to the Sea refers to the erasure of Israel.…

Right, and so does "Free Palestine!".

[Consul]

Can someone desribe to me what the two state solution is? Is it a separate Jewish state co-exisitng with a Palestine state? It appears there are now three independant states: Israel, East Bank, and Gaza. "No encrachment and misssiles" is wishful thinking. Ironically, two states can be fulfilled if you take East Bank and Gaza as one Palestinian state, in which case none can gainsay what only the Palestinian people can decide upon.

The geographically neatest two-state solution would be: Israel (including Gaza Strip + West Bank) + Jordan. But I know this would work neither demographically nor politically. I don't even know if this two-state solution has ever been actually suggested by anybody.

[Consul]

From the River to the Sea refers to the erasure of Israel. There's complexity there, but that's the general gist.

If we look at the words, "From the River to the sea, Palestine shall be free", they seem to say what I suggested. I wouldn't've been rash enough to say this off my own bat, but I read a thoughtful and considered piece by an academic Palestinian historian, who explained. It is certainly not supportive of Israel, but it is clear from the words that the slogan is not anti-Israel (or anti-Jewish), but PRO-Palestinian.

No, the slogans "From the River to the Sea (Palestine shall be free)!" & "Free Palestine!" are (used as) pro-Palestinian calls for the elimination of Israel! To say they are "not supportive of Israel" is as embarrassingly euphemistic as saying that the Nazi propaganda was "not supportive of Jews".

[gad-fly]

Can someone desribe to me what the two state solution is? Is it a separate Jewish state co-exisitng with a Palestine state? It appears there are now three independant states: Israel, East Bank, and Gaza. "No encrachment and misssiles" is wishful thinking. Ironically, two states can be fulfilled if you take East Bank and Gaza as one Palestinian state, in which case none can gainsay what only the Palestinian people can decide upon.

The geographically neatest two-state solution would be: Israel (including Gaza Strip + West Bank) + Jordan. But I know this would work neither demographically nor politically. I don't even know if this two-state solution has ever been actually suggested by anybody.

We can all agree to support the two state solution. the declaration is a good talking point, non-offensive, and and conciliatory. The devil, of course, is in the details. It may even be two states, both from river to sea. How? That worry is for others to work out.

[Pattern-chaser]

From the River to the Sea refers to the erasure of Israel.…

Right, and so does "Free Palestine!".

Both phrases aspire to a Palestine that is not subject to a brutal military occupation and land/resources-grab. That aspiration must refer indirectly to Israel, of course, and to the USA too, for it is those two powers (well, one Empire and one of its many satellite states) whose forces and weapons are currently being used to deprive the Palestinian people of their homeland.

But your insistence on all the pro-Israel propaganda — including the latest of many Big Lies, that "Hamas beheaded 40 babies!!!" — paints a picture so one-sided that it informs us all why looking for a solution to these problems is so very difficult. The President of the USA has received $4.2m from pro-Israeli interests and supporters. The most Terrifying War Machine on the planet has been bought, and will remain so until greed directs it to want even more, in even more different ways. When it suits the profit motive, the USA will discard Israel, but not before.

This will not lead to a workable solution.

[Pattern-chaser]

"Condone" means "Excuse, overlook, or make allowances for; be lenient with", according to my dictionary app. That seems about right.

Yes, that seems a fair definition.

Note that you cannot "condone" what is morally right. If you believe an act to be moral, then there is nothing to excuse or overlook or exercise leniency about.

The concept divides the set of morally-wrong actions into those that are excusable and those that are inexcusable. Those that warrant leniency and those that warrant harsh condemnation and punishment.

It replaces a binary right/wrong with a trinary right/wrong- but-excusable/inexcusably-wrong.

And I'm thinking that maybe that applies regardless of whether you approach right and wrong from the perspective of utilitarianism or rights or any other ethical approach.

Yes, I think that's definitely a more useful way of looking at it. But even here, the move from binary to trinary overlooks the rather large grey areas that surround the three options. Real life isn't separable, it's all part of one whole. And when we try to divide it up (to make it possible for us to understand, in our small way) we lose information, lots of it, and thus we lose meaning too. And the knowledge/meaning that remains is damaged, possibly beyond repair. If we take a hatchet to my skull, and carve out an eyeball, we lose so much it's debatable whether what remains (of the eyeball) is even usable for the purpose of knowledge-gathering...?

[Pattern-chaser]

From the River to the Sea refers to the erasure of Israel. There's complexity there, but that's the general gist.

If we look at the words, "From the River to the sea, Palestine shall be free", they seem to say what I suggested. I wouldn't've been rash enough to say this off my own bat, but I read a thoughtful and considered piece by an academic Palestinian historian, who explained. It is certainly not supportive of Israel, but it is clear from the words that the slogan is not anti-Israel (or anti-Jewish), but PRO-Palestinian.

No, the slogans "From the River to the Sea (Palestine shall be free)!" & "Free Palestine!" are (used as) pro-Palestinian calls for the elimination of Israel! To say they are "not supportive of Israel" is as embarrassingly euphemistic as saying that the Nazi propaganda was "not supportive of Jews".

It is certainly not supportive of Israel, but it is clear from the words that the slogan is not anti-Israel (or anti-Jewish), but PRO-Palestinian.

And yet my final sentence, above, still stands, I think? And it is a very strange thing to compare the Palestinians' actions to those of Nazis, however obliquely, when it is Israel that is pursuing genocidal policies. Palestinians simply hope to reclaim their homeland...

[value]

The following organization might be of interest. Similar to eco-feminism, it seeks to establish a basis for peace in efforts to protect nature.

ecopeace-isreal-palestine.jpg (125.74 KiB) Viewed 741 times

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EcoPeace_Middle_East

Arab–Israeli peace projects
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab%E2%8 ... e_projects

"Within the context of reason, there is no place for evil."

Philosopher Immanuel Kant wrote in "Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason,": "pure reason is the faculty of concepts, and concepts are not concerned with the inclinations, but only with the understanding and its object"

Therefore, according to Kant (who authored one of the most profound works on reason), pure reason cannot be the source of evil, which arises from the inclinations and desires of the human will. Kant believed that every human being has the capacity to resist evil and choose the moral path, which is the path of reason.

Reason and intellect is a higher good than war and revenge.

Philosophy can be the solution, and because of it, philosophy should be held responsible.

"Modern man is to be expected to evolve beyond barbaric practices such as war and revenge if it intends to secure longer term prosperity. Intelligence before practice means overcoming darkness before it was ever present, and thus, to prevent war and revenge in favour of reason."

American philosopher Henry David Thoreau:

"Whatever my own practice may be, I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual moral improvement, to leave off eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each other when they came in contact with the more civilized."

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

The love affair of Adam Sandler and the correlated film that shows that Israelis and Palestinians can flourish together side by side, is described in the OP: viewtopic.php?p=444410#p444410

I hope that this topic is helpful for preventing atrocities for people!

I have been promoting a link to this discussion on a website that is visited from 200 countries per week, which is becoming more trafficked daily from all countries in the region.

In this topic I have been proposing that philosophy should be held responsible, with diverse independent reasoning for entry to that argument. The primary argument has been that intellect and reason is a higher good than war and revenge, which I have been asserting for years.

Today I watched an episode of McGuyver who, in an attempt to stop someone from seeking revenge for the murder of his brother, said "You are smarter than this".

The one seeking revenge chose intellect and won. This sort of confirmed and provided an example for the idea.

Intellect and reason is a higher good and enables people to win. Therefore my argument: philosophy can and should be held responsible.


A philosophical project on the wisdom of McGuyver.

what_would_macgyver_do_600.png (269.08 KiB) Viewed 741 times

What would MacGyver do? An excerpt from the revised edition of Life Changing: A Philosophical Guide
Angus MacGyver thought when he retired from the secret service, he’d put his days of danger behind him. But MacGyver was forever getting caught in life and death situations. Fortunately, MacGyver had a preternatural knack for improvising his way out of them. ... Thirty years on, MacGyver is more a cultural icon than ever before.
https://philosophyforchange.wordpress.c ... uide-2016/

[Sy Borg]

From the River to the Sea refers to the erasure of Israel. There's complexity there, but that's the general gist.

If we look at the words, "From the River to the sea, Palestine shall be free", they seem to say what I suggested. I wouldn't've been rash enough to say this off my own bat, but I read a thoughtful and considered piece by an academic Palestinian historian, who explained. It is certainly not supportive of Israel, but it is clear from the words that the slogan is not anti-Israel (or anti-Jewish), but PRO-Palestinian.

No, the slogans "From the River to the Sea (Palestine shall be free)!" & "Free Palestine!" are (used as) pro-Palestinian calls for the elimination of Israel! To say they are "not supportive of Israel" is as embarrassingly euphemistic as saying that the Nazi propaganda was "not supportive of Jews".

It is certainly not supportive of Israel, but it is clear from the words that the slogan is not anti-Israel (or anti-Jewish), but PRO-Palestinian.

And yet my final sentence, above, still stands, I think? And it is a very strange thing to compare the Palestinians' actions to those of Nazis, however obliquely, when it is Israel that is pursuing genocidal policies. Palestinians simply hope to reclaim their homeland...

Yes, the Palestinians want to reclaim what they believe is their their homeland - it is currently called Israel.

Or maybe you figure that Jews don't have a legitimate homeland due to colonial interference? Yet the Jews were driven from the Middle East, and that wasn't colonialism. Jews originally came from that area, so why do you think they left en masse? For fun?

Jews were scoured from Muslim lands in Asia and Africa in the 1900s. You don't hear much about that - only Hitler's role - but not the scouring of Jews by Muslims that preceded the gas chambers. It seems that the west only takes wikedness seriously if the perp has white skin. Evil brown people are given a free pass, which is ultimately patronising. Are brown people not advanced enough to be considered as evil as evil whites?? That's the intimation.

After WWII, Jews were given back a portion of their old territory by Europe, and local Muslims have been constantly trying to reverse that situation ever since. They declared war on Israel and they lost - claiming genocide because they lost so badly - the genocide they had hoped to inflict on Jews.

This is basically a continuation of the Israelites vs Canaanites conflict, as described in the Bible. The idea that this is really Palestinian land is nonsense. That land has always belonged to whomever could claim it.

Not that land truly belongs to anyone. Why do people always assume that the second last owner of land is the rightful owner?

No doubt, that suits the purposes of propagandists, who suck in the public by pretending to be the moral choice. People are drawn in, wanting to "be a good person". They want to back the underdog - but they don't think about what happens when the underdog is responsible for most of its own problems.

While Jews were purged from local Muslim lands, plenty of Palestinians currently work in Israel and lead good lives (or they did before this war). I've seen interviews with a number of Palestinians living in Israel who prefer it to their home. That does not suggest mistreatment - and certainly not scouring, as was done to Jews. If we are interested in being even-handed, why is this factor ignored?

Both sides are pretty awful. The slow invasion via settlements can't be justified. Still, I see Israel as somewhat less awful because at least they have a somewhat open society - which is why Arabs can live and prosper in Israel in a way than Jews can't do in neighbouring countries.

This is a subset of a larger war currently being waged between, well, extreme authoritarianism and moderate authoritarianism. Again, I see no "good guys" and "bad guys". With eight billion people, freedom is increasingly no longer possible anywhere in the world, despite lofty claims. It always comes down to the least worst option.

[Pattern-chaser]

Yes, the Palestinians want to reclaim what they believe is their their homeland - it is currently called Israel.

Or maybe you figure that Jews don't have a legitimate homeland due to colonial interference? Yet the Jews were driven from the Middle East, and that wasn't colonialism. Jews originally came from that area, so why do you think they left en masse? For fun?

If my understanding is correct, the Jews were driven from the Middle East around two millennia ago. That's a very long time. In comparison, Palestine was taken from the Palestinians only 75 years ago.

The slow invasion via settlements can't be justified.

Yes, as we have said in this topic, aside from the more strongly partisan comments, this is a next-to-impossible dispute to settle. If it was as simple as ejecting the Israelis from the land that was 'given' to them — i.e. taken by military, financial and economic force from the Palestinians — we would surely already have done it? But it isn't that simple. Before 1948, perhaps a ... friendlier solution could have been found? But I don't think that's possible now.

As for the lasting solution we would all like to see, I can't see how it can/could be achieved. All I see here in this topic is a reflection of the impasse between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Is there a way through this?

[Lagayascienza]

It seems that there are only three possible scenarios:

1. Israel does a final solution on the Palestinians and exterminates them, or at least expels them from Palestine. Heretofore, that seems to have been Israel's goal.
2. The Palestinians, if they are not to be exterminated or expelled from Palestine, continue their struggle (and I wouldn't blame them) which will mean never ending trouble in the Middle East.
3. The two sides come to a reasonable two-state solution.

Only the third scenario makes any moral or practical sense to me. But does it, can it, be made to make any sense to either of the warring parties?

The only other, but extremely unlikely, scenario is that all of Palestine be incorporated into Israel and the Palestinians are not exterminated or expelled but agree to be so incorporated. That doesn't stand a snow flakes chance in hell. Therefore, one of the above three scenarios is what will occur. Which would be the most just of the three scenarios?

[Pattern-chaser]

Yes, the Palestinians want to reclaim what they believe is their homeland...

I have a question. Several times in this topic, IIRC, you have commented that, after 75 years, the Palestinians should just accept 1948 and move on. It's a fair question. But it occurs to me that the Jews pursued exactly those same hopes and dreams of reclaiming their homeland, but they have pursued them since the eighth century BCE, nearly 3000 years!. After such an enormous amount of time has passed, shouldn't your question apply also to the Jews?