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

[Consul]

Speaking of geography, let's set the record straight:

This Video is simply Israeli propaganda. You ought to be ashamed to be taken is so eaily.

What statements of hers do you think are false?

[Consul]

"Potential Palestinian territory"? The whole world is potential Palestinian territory. The Palestinians just have to conquer all other countries.
Seriously, potential doesn't mean actual, and the first map wrongly suggests that "historical Palestine" was a sort of proto-Palestinian state populated only by Palestinian Arabs—which it was not.

[Sy Borg]

Hamas did not "start" the current conflict. Their attack took place in the historical, political, and geographical context of the Middle East. It was a response. Without context, there is no sense to be found. [There is little enough sense in this conflict to begin with.]

No, Hamas started the current conflict. They may not have started all the others, but they deliberately started this conflict to shore up their failing domestic position (because they are horrible at governing) and to stymie the Israel/Saudi deal. It was done with assistance from Moscow to further drain the funding, will and resolve of the west. This war is part of a far larger one that includes China, the US, Russia, Ukraine, Venezuela and Guyana.

Many of those supporting Hamas (who know little about the situation, aside from Hamas propaganda) are doing so due to their own dashed hopes and lack of life prospects. Some in the west who are struggling consider themselves to be the "fellow oppressed". They are reflexively joining forces with what they perceive to be underdogs against western imperialism. The west now has many millions of useful idiots, they have become key to the strategies of those seeking the west's fall. Of course, if the west falls, all those useful idiots will fall too.

The west is very far from perfect but Europe has generally been the strongest civilising influence on the world for a long time, and this fact ignored for fear of being called "racist". The west deserves to be defended. That we are increasingly not defending ourselves is a concern. Self-criticism is essential, but siding with those who hate the west and its "decadent" (ie. humane) cultures is naive and self-defeating.

The west ideally needs to address inequality, but it probably won't. Corporations and billionaires need to allow more wealth to trickle down to the people. (Maybe they could even pay a tax or two? How about it, Rupert and Lachlan?). Otherwise the restive will become even more restive. I believe that the Palestine demonstrations have been significantly boosted by those who are actually protesting against a global order that squeezed them out. Any excuse to have a go.

However, their enemy's enemy is not their friend in this case. Those gays marching? They would be killed in Palestine. Lesbians would be raped and killed. Other women would have severely curtailed rights. Yet they march for Palestine. If they were actually concerned about injustice, they would have marched for the Uyghurs and Ukrainians because they have had it much worse than Palestine.

Instead, people are pretending to care about injustice that doesn't affect them personally because there's so much injustice, there's no logical place to start. They care enough to hang around with their pals building up social brownie points but not enough to actually give money to the cause.

Although many recent victims happen to be Jews, they were attacked because they are Israelis. So, just because some of the victims are Jews, this does not lead to the conclusion that their enemies must be Nazis. The Nazis targetted Jews because of their religion; modern Palestinians target those they see as invaders: Israelis.

People are happily marching alongside extremists shouting "Gas the Jews". Jews in universities in the US, Canada, UK and Australia are being targetted. So, the conflict has quickly become about Jews, not Israelis. Jews are the only group (aside from whites generally) not to receive the usual anti-discrimination protections on campuses.

[Consul]

People are happily marching alongside extremists shouting "Gas the Jews". Jews in universities in the US, Canada, UK and Australia are being targetted. So, the conflict has quickly become about Jews, not Israelis. Jews are the only group (aside from whites generally) not to receive the usual anti-discrimination protections on campuses.

Didn't you know that white oppressors & colonizers like the Jews do not deserve to be protected from discrimination?
Seriously, let's not kid ourselves: What we see on campuses is a manifestation of left antisemitism!

[Sy Borg]

People are happily marching alongside extremists shouting "Gas the Jews". Jews in universities in the US, Canada, UK and Australia are being targetted. So, the conflict has quickly become about Jews, not Israelis. Jews are the only group (aside from whites generally) not to receive the usual anti-discrimination protections on campuses.

Didn't you know that white oppressors & colonizers like the Jews do not deserve to be protected from discrimination? :wink:
Seriously, let's not kid ourselves: What we see on campuses is a manifestation of left antisemitism!

Yes. If it was only about Israel, then only Israeli students would be harassed. Somehow Arabs have convinced young western idealists who are already angry at their lack of opportunities (aka useful idiots) that the problem is Jews, not Israel's government.

[Consul]

"No, we're not antisemites; we're just critics of Israel…"

"In a previous controversy over antisemitism ten years earlier, [Ken] Livingstone had written: ‘For far too long the accusation of antisemitism has been used against anyone who is critical of the policies of the Israeli government, as I have been’ (2006). At that time, this formulation struck a chord with me; I had seen it many times. Chapter 1 describes what I have named the Livingstone Formulation, which has become a standard rhetorical response to accusations of antisemitism. It is a way of refusing to answer a charge of antisemitism by responding instead with a counter-charge that those who talk about antisemitism are really engaged in bad-faith efforts to silence criticism of Israel. At the time when I named it, I was a little nervous; I thought that it was, perhaps, arbitrary to associate Livingstone’s name with this phenomenon. But more recently, Ken Livingstone has really made this formulation his own; he has repeatedly relied on it. He tries to change the subject when he is challenged on the topic of antisemitism. He says Jews cry ‘antisemitism!’ when Israel is criticized; but he cries ‘Israel!’ when antisemitism is criticized."
(p. 6)

"Many antiracist people in our time have been educated to recognize the accusation of antisemitism, rather than the antisemitism itself, as the dirty trick. They hear it as an attempt to smear and silence people who criticize Israel. Today’s antisemitism incorporates the notion that those who complain about antisemitism are the racists. It treats the opponents of antisemitism, not the antisemites, as the cynical ones; it treats opponents of antisemitism, not the antisemites, as the powerful ones."
(p. 11)

"The key elements of the Livingstone Formulation as I characterize it are as follows:

1. To refuse to discuss the content of the accusation by shifting focus instead onto the hidden motive for the allegation.
2. To make a counter-accusation that the accuser is not mistaken, has not made an error of judgment, but is getting it wrong on purpose.
3. To collapse everything – some of which may be demonization of Israel, support for boycott or antisemitism – into a legitimate category like ‘criticism’.
4 To allege that those who raise the issue of antisemitism are doing so as part of a common secret plan to silence such ‘criticism’."
(p. 23)

(Hirsh, David. Contemporary Left Antisemitism. Abingdon: Routledge, 2018.)

[Stoppelmann]

Spin.

He died because he refused to leave and he was in the danger zone. If Hamas had not attacked Israel and deliberately provided war, he would be alive today.

If he was in the UK or US you would be complaining he was an immigrant.
Now you say he had no right to live in his own home.
He was marked for death for posting on Twitter.
That's okay with you?

Absurd claims by you.

It had nothing to do with his posts or where he had the right to live. He was caught in a war zone. If Hamas didn't bomb Israel, it would not have been a war zone.

Did you not bother to read what I had posted?

He was warned personally by phone by the IDF that he was going to be killed.
He fled his classroom to protect his srudents.
Then was "surgically" murdered with a drone stirke.
All of this happened in a "safe zone" to which Palestinians were instructed to flee.
He joins 74 other journalists so targeted.

We disagree on many subjects, but you have my full support here.

[Sculptor1]

If he was in the UK or US you would be complaining he was an immigrant.
Now you say he had no right to live in his own home.
He was marked for death for posting on Twitter.
That's okay with you?

Absurd claims by you.

It had nothing to do with his posts or where he had the right to live. He was caught in a war zone. If Hamas didn't bomb Israel, it would not have been a war zone.

Did you not bother to read what I had posted?

He was warned personally by phone by the IDF that he was going to be killed.
He fled his classroom to protect his srudents.
Then was "surgically" murdered with a drone stirke.
All of this happened in a "safe zone" to which Palestinians were instructed to flee.
He joins 74 other journalists so targeted.

We disagree on many subjects, but you have my full support here.

Thank you

[Sculptor1]

"No, we're not antisemites; we're just critics of Israel…"


(Hirsh, David. Contemporary Left Antisemitism. Abingdon: Routledge, 2018.)

[/quote]

Would you call a person who funds Hamas antisemitic?

LINK DoubleU x 3 timesofisrael dot com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/

[Stoppelmann]

"No, we're not antisemites; we're just critics of Israel…"


(Hirsh, David. Contemporary Left Antisemitism. Abingdon: Routledge, 2018.)

Would you call a person who funds Hamas antisemitic?

LINK DoubleU x 3 timesofisrael dot com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/

"For years, the various governments led by Benjamin Netanyahu took an approach that divided power between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank — bringing Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to his knees while making moves that propped up the Hamas terror group.

The idea was to prevent Abbas — or anyone else in the Palestinian Authority’s West Bank government — from advancing toward the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Thus, amid this bid to impair Abbas, Hamas was upgraded from a mere terror group to an organization with which Israel held indirect negotiations via Egypt, and one that was allowed to receive infusions of cash from abroad."

[Sculptor1]

"No, we're not antisemites; we're just critics of Israel…"


(Hirsh, David. Contemporary Left Antisemitism. Abingdon: Routledge, 2018.)

Would you call a person who funds Hamas antisemitic?

LINK DoubleU x 3 timesofisrael dot com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/

"For years, the various governments led by Benjamin Netanyahu took an approach that divided power between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank — bringing Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to his knees while making moves that propped up the Hamas terror group.

The idea was to prevent Abbas — or anyone else in the Palestinian Authority’s West Bank government — from advancing toward the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Thus, amid this bid to impair Abbas, Hamas was upgraded from a mere terror group to an organization with which Israel held indirect negotiations via Egypt, and one that was allowed to receive infusions of cash from abroad."

I think the aim of Netanyahu is clear enough. He wishes for the Palestinian "animals" to appear as bad as possible to justify the slow gradual genocide.
He might as well have planned the Oct6th attacks himself. Despite being forewarned by Egyptian agents, the raiders met very little resistence and managed to scale massive walls with automatic machine guns, moats and razor wire.
It all plays into his MO.

[Pattern-chaser]

"Potential Palestinian territory"? The whole world is potential Palestinian territory. The Palestinians just have to conquer all other countries.
Seriously, potential doesn't mean actual, and the first map wrongly suggests that "historical Palestine" was a sort of proto-Palestinian state populated only by Palestinian Arabs—which it was not.

The reference on the map, to "Potential", is not why the map was posted. I think that's pretty obvious. The map shows how the Palestinians' land has been gradually taken, starting with the Peel Commission. Then there was Partition, which took away more, and gave it to the new 'Israelis'. Then in 1967 the Israelis took some more, and since then, they have taken more still, until the Palestinians have little left, as the map illustrates. It appears that Israel has every intention (?) of claiming all of Palestine for themselves. I wonder where the Palestinians will live then...?

[Pattern-chaser]

Hamas did not "start" the current conflict. Their attack took place in the historical, political, and geographical context of the Middle East. It was a response. Without context, there is no sense to be found. [There is little enough sense in this conflict to begin with.]

No, Hamas started the current conflict. They may not have started all the others, but they deliberately started this conflict...

Everything that happens has a context. This situation has a lengthy historical context, and much more besides. No skirmish happens independent of the battle; no battle independent of the war, and so on.

[Pattern-chaser]

If it was only about Israel, then only Israeli students would be harassed. Somehow Arabs have convinced young western idealists who are already angry at their lack of opportunities (aka useful idiots) that the problem is Jews, not Israel's government.

Sadly, this is because the Israeli government has nurtured the idea that Jew = Israeli; Israeli = Jew. Thus protests that should be aimed at Israelis are actually (and wrongly) aimed at Jews.

[Consul]

An interesting new poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research: https://www.pcpsr.org/en/node/961

"Wide public support for Hamas’ offensive on October the 7th, but the vast majority denies that Hamas has committed atrocities against Israeli civilians. The war increases Hamas’ popularity and greatly weakens the standing of the PA and its leadership; nonetheless, the majority of the Palestinians remains unsupportive of Hamas. Support for armed struggle rises, particularly in the West Bank and in response to settlers’ violence, but support for the two-state solution rises somewhat. The overwhelming majority condemns the positions taken by the US and the main European powers during the war and express the belief that they have lost their moral compass.…"