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

[Sy Borg]

No, it is very simple. There are many terrible conflicts and you only focus on one. No only do you focus on it, but it seems to be one of the most important things in your life now.

You have a desperate need to keep Jews from doing what Arabs have been doing to each other for years (with no care from you). Why? Because you were told to by an anti-Semitic media that gives you a blow by blow account of the war every day while telling you absolutely nothing about Sudan or other current genocides.

If you are not anti-Semitic, then you have simply been duped by anti-Semites.

You think I'm supporting Israel. I'm not. I'm saying that you and others are being thoroughly biased in your assessments, applying selective standards, and treating Arabs as though they were primitive dolts incapable of strategy or moral agency. All of this was Hamas's choice and strategy, not Israel's. Israel has gone right over the top, yes, and I suspect that is the perfect result for Hamas's purposes because it isolated Israel politically. That was dumb too - they played into Hamas's hands.

So we see that sending missiles to kill over 1,000 civilians and kidnapping and torturing hundreds of civilians results in Hamas being rewarded by the UN and the west's "useful idiots".

[Mo_reese]

It's hard not to be biased. I do not approve of Hamas' attack on civilians which resulted in about 900 deaths and 250 hostages. I also do not approve of Israel's past behavior where they've beaten, raped and imprisoned approx 10,000 Palestinians. I do not approve of Israel wounding and/or killing over 100,000 people not counting those buried under tons of rubble. I do not condone the starving and shelling of over a million helpless civilians with the stated goal of exterminating all of them. I am definitely biased against the atrocities of Israel. You seem to condone the atrocities or think they are some how justified, but you provide no reasonable justification.

[Sy Borg]

Of course it's hard to be unbiased. If philosophy was easy, more people would be interested.

Mo, you disapprove of an awful lot.

How do you feel about the Sudanese government enlisting Janjaweed - armed nomads from the north of the nation - to attack villages that they believe harbour rebels. Government planes will bomb villages in Darfur, and soon afterwards Janjaweed ride in on horses or camels to steal from homes and rape and murder civilians?

No one ever talks about this, but it's worse than anything happening in Palestine. No one cares. Sudanese don't matter. I assume that most here see them as second-class citizens, because it's clear which lives are valued and which are not.

But no, all you care about are Israel's sins. It can only be either a dislike of Jews or slavish following of the media, which is deeply in favour of Palestine, despite false claims that they favour Israel. If the media favoured Israel, you would have nothing about people being kille but daily stories about the Israeli hostages (whom the media soon forgot about).

Why is the media biased? Because journalists have routinely been trained in universities that have been deeply infiltrated by cultural Marxism, reducing all issues to Oppressor and Oppressed. According to the narrative in universities, no nation is a worse Oppressor than Israel, which of course is wildly incorrect. Journalists and academic claimed for years that Palestinians were undergoing genocide, even as their numbers grew far more quickly than most of the world. They claim Palestinians are mistreated in Israel, but we find that most were leading a good life and enjoyed working and living in Israel. By contrast, Jews cannot live in any of the surrounding Arab - they were purged long ago.

I'm not even pro Jew. I don't care about Jew, or any other group. I care about individuals. However, I look at what people say about all this and I am gobsmacked by the biases, double standards and the way even bleeding hearts retain a colonialist mindset, unable to imagine that "primitive" people like Palestinians could be strategic and that Hamas is more in control of the situation than the gullible Marxist-leaning western press will ever admit.

[Pattern-chaser]

There are many terrible conflicts and you only focus on one. No only do you focus on it, but it seems to be one of the most important things in your life now.

You've said something similar to me, too. Answering for myself, yes, I am passionate about the injustice of the plight the Palestinian people find themselves in. But I am just as passionate that we should not reject ideas or possibilities without a conclusive justification in accordance with Logic and Reason. As an autist, I find that subjects that genuinely interest me lead me toward a passionate approach. Things that seem 'wrong' to me also result in a similar response. But is any one of them "the most important thing in [my] life"? No, not even close.

But it is wrong, I feel, to observe that I care about this particular topic more than I do about others. It just isn't true. But it is equally true to observe that I cannot be passionate about *all* injustices, or all the things I consider 'wrong', for whatever reason, all at the same time. I don't have the brain-power to consider them all simultaneously. And so I consider the Middle East conflict here, in this topic, separately from other injustices or issues, although they all deserve consideration. I am a puny human, and this is the best I can do...

[Pattern-chaser]

I'm not even pro Jew.

Your posts here since last October give the lie to this, I think.

[Lagayascienza]

Look, it's simple.

Israel wants a final solution in respect of the remaining Palestinians. And it can do a final solution, or close to it, so that is what it's doing. With the backing of the West. People in the West can do the moral talk, but they can't do the moral walk.

So, if extermination it must be, then let it be mercifully quick. I'm sure uncle Bibi would just build one giant gas chamber if he could. It would be kinder than the death by a thousand cuts that has been meted out to the Palestinians since 1948.

Ah, don't ya just love humanity!

[Lagayascienza]

No one gives a sh*t about the Sudanese, about the Uighurs, or about the Rohingyas, etc. And no one gives a sh*t about the Palestinians. The best we can say is that at least the Palestinians should not feel being singled out. The West will have it's puppet outpost in the Middle East whatever mealy-mouthed moral noises ordinary people in the West are wont to make.

[Sy Borg]

I'm not even pro Jew.

Your posts here since last October give the lie to this, I think.

Nope, I just don't like to see instigators being praised and I dislike imbalance.

This war was Hamas's decision, and its continuation and escalation has been Hamas's decision. They could have saved their people by surrendering at any stage, but they doubled down, and blamed Israel.

Why doesn't Bhutan send missiles into China, who is salami-slicing the nation so heavily it may not exist in the future? Why don't they send in terrorists to kidnap, rape and torture Chinese? Because China's response would destroy the nation. Hamas is in a similar situation, but they don't care if the nation is destroyed because they are not working for Palestine - Hamas is an Iran proxy. Iran and the Hamas leaders, of course, sit pretty and safe in luxury while their Palestinian arm takes the hits it needs to use as propaganda to break down western solidarity. It's working brilliantly too.

Imagine how the west would react if the media reported on every single action Sudan's RSF? At this stage almost no one cares even a tiny bit about the genocide in Sudan - it's simply not on the radar. I do find it disturbing that even philosophy buffs are so easily controlled by the media.

[Sy Borg]

No one gives a sh*t about the Sudanese, about the Uighurs, or about the Rohingyas, etc. And no one gives a sh*t about the Palestinians. The best we can say is that at least the Palestinians should not feel being singled out. The West will have it's puppet outpost in the Middle East whatever mealy-mouthed moral noises ordinary people in the West are wont to make.

Israel is far from a western puppet state. There is a reason why so many people hate Jews. It's because they seem to compromise only somewhat more than Muslims. Have you noticed Israel following the US's requests to dial down their response? Me neither. My family ended up in a situation where they had to do business with a Jewish organisation and a secular organisation? The secular organisation was reasonable. The Jewish organisation pushed and blocked, pushed and blocked, and play many games, finally screwing us out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. I believe the term is hard-@rse.

In the end, eight billion people, not enough to go around, growing inequality - none of this is going to bring the best out in humanity, as we can see.

[Mo_reese]

Answering for myself, yes, I am passionate about the injustice of the plight the Palestinian people find themselves in. But I am just as passionate that we should not reject ideas or possibilities without a conclusive justification in accordance with Logic and Reason. As an autist, I find that subjects that genuinely interest me lead me toward a passionate approach. Things that seem 'wrong' to me also result in a similar response. But is any one of them "the most important thing in [my] life"? No, not even close.

But it is wrong, I feel, to observe that I care about this particular topic more than I do about others. It just isn't true. But it is equally true to observe that I cannot be passionate about *all* injustices, or all the things I consider 'wrong', for whatever reason, all at the same time. I don't have the brain-power to consider them all simultaneously. And so I consider the Middle East conflict here, in this topic, separately from other injustices or issues, although they all deserve consideration. I am a puny human, and this is the best I can do...

Well said PC. I agree completely.
I have been somewhat politically active since the Vietnam War but have recognized that I can't follow but a few of the world's crises. I actually never paid much attention to Israel because of the mess in that part of the world. During that time, if anything I was sympathetic to Israel. But seeing the horrors being brought down by Israel and their inhuman callousness is beyond belief. Trying to justify their terror by saying that the Palestinians in Gaza are subhuman and therefore need to be exterminated is right out of the Nazi playbook.
I am focusing on this over other world crises because:
1. I see the horrors, I see the IDF bragging about shooting civilians in the knees because it's fun, shooting children and pregnant women, bombing hospitals, schools, driving tanks over rubble to make sure those under are dead. These are monsters.
2. Another reason is that my government does nothing about our homeless, healthcare, the housing crisis, inflation, etc. but they send hundreds of billions to Israel and Israel uses some of the money to buy our politicians to keep the money coming.
3. This crisis reveals that the wealthy support the fascist Israel government while the non-wealthy oppose genocide and the move to exterminate an undetermined number of people. The students are right and Biden and Bibi are wrong.
4. This crisis also reveals that our government was successful at controlling the media during the Iraq Invasion to hid their crimes against humanity but social media revealed the truth in Gaza. Our government will try to buy control and end that exposure in the future.
Name calling is a bully move to try to dominate a discussion. Labeling people as anti-Semitic is an attempt to discount their opinions and views. I am not anti-Semitic and I have nothing against Jewish people, but I am strongly against the government of Israel's goal of extermination. Anyone that can intentionally shoot children are monsters. How can anyone with any empathy support that?

[Sy Borg]

What happened is that anti-Semitism has gone berserk. I have not seen anything like it in my lifetime. University campuses everywhere chanting "intafada" (destruction of Israel), from "the river to the sea" (removal of Israel) and "death to Israel".

No pushback from you guys. A little "oh that's bad" and then back to bashing Jews. Now Jews are bullies for calling those who force them to hide in their dorms anti-Semitic. Those who threaten Jews are not anti-Semitic, according to Mo - they are just being bullied by those terrible Jews.

Some universities are temporarily unable to function at the moment because they are so disrupted by protesters. Many of these protesters are overseas students, bringing their issues into our countries. Their high numbers are already causing homelessness and rental hikes for ordinary people - and now they use this golden opportunity to disrupt their host country, and wasting a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that ordinary westerners would love to have.

Again, universities are not only guilty of fostering extremist anti-Semitism - now all over western universities - but also of using bloated international student schemes to push their own institution at the expense of locals. The universities were the first to complain when the government realised it had let in too many migrants and badly exacerbated housing unaffordability (now spending billions in the budget to undo some of the problems).

International students make up four percent of a rental market with a vacancy rate of less than one percent. Simply, universities - like many other corporations - are increasingly acting as parasites, and they need to be reigned in hard before they become too toxic.

I note that Hamas supporters have no issue with the boys shooting nail guns into Israeli vaginas, and simply deny it as propaganda, but get very upset about children being shot (which is never propaganda). How many of those kids had been co-opted as human shields?. Kids being hurt make the best publicity.

And that's what this war is all about - publicity. That's why Hamas started it, and choose to prolong the war. If Hamas wanted the deaths to stop they could have surrendered months ago. It is 100% their choice.

It amuses me that Hamas supporters like you consider Hamas to be too primitive to incapable of moral agency. You take the classic colonialist notion, seeing them as mindless "noble savages" without any capacity to make sensible decisions themselves. Thus, there is ZERO judgement of Hamas causing and prolonging this.

Now, it seems they have driven Israel completely nuts and they are playing into Hamas's hands. Rest assured, Hamas is winning this war - easily. They are achieving all their initial goals. They killed off the Israel/Saudi deal. They have turned Israel into an international pariah. Now they have won major UN concessions.

And all it cost was the pain of their people. Genius! The Zap Brannigan school of warfare. No wonder you guys all love Hamas so much - they are so incredibly decent and moral, not like those evil Jews!

Why not push more gays off a roofs? That's what the good guys do, apparently - kill gays and get their own people slaughtered to prove a political point. The bad guys give women and gays equal rights.

It's clear what direction the west is heading. If you think the US abortion ban was a problem, that's only the start.

[Lagayascienza]

No one gives a sh*t about the Sudanese, about the Uighurs, or about the Rohingyas, etc. And no one gives a sh*t about the Palestinians. The best we can say is that at least the Palestinians should not feel being singled out. The West will have it's puppet outpost in the Middle East whatever mealy-mouthed moral noises ordinary people in the West are wont to make.

Israel is far from a western puppet state. There is a reason why so many people hate Jews. It's because they seem to compromise only somewhat more than Muslims. Have you noticed Israel following the US's requests to dial down their response? Me neither. My family ended up in a situation where they had to do business with a Jewish organisation and a secular organisation? The secular organisation was reasonable. The Jewish organisation pushed and blocked, pushed and blocked, and play many games, finally screwing us out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. I believe the term is hard-@rse.

In the end, eight billion people, not enough to go around, growing inequality - none of this is going to bring the best out in humanity, as we can see.

Quite so. When we crowd animals together in feedlots they start laying into each other. It would be sensible if all those chickens etc could say to each other, look, guys, it's crowded in here, so we are just going to have to be reasonable and agree not to intrude into what little space each of us has.

Not a chance!

Humans are animals, too, and when they are over-crowded reason is not going to get much of a look-in with them, either.

In the Middle East, the Israelis and the Palestinians want the removal of each other from the territory. Neither is interested in a two-state solution. So they're going to have to hard-@rse it out. Both have their backers. Israel has the west and the Palestinians have the Muslim world.

Israel and the West are winning. Apart from them both wanting to occupy a very limited territorial space, the two sides also have incompatible cultures and religions.

It is a complex, multi-layered problem. Israel can use, and is using, the antisemitism card, but antisemitism per se is not the cause of the problem. It is a problem of space and incompatible religions and cultures. Reason has little to do with it, and notions of fairness and justice by impartial outsiders (if such were possible) are a matter of complete disinterest to the parties involved and their backers.

I don't like seeing bloodied and dead children amid neighborhoods bombed into oblivion, every night on the TV news, but there seems to be nothing for it but to let nature take its course. No one is going to step in to enforce a peace that neither side wants.

[Pattern-chaser]

This war was Hamas's decision, and its continuation and escalation has been Hamas's decision.

The war started long before last October. Hamas' recent action was armed resistance to a long-standing invasion and occupation. The only part of it that I condemn — and I condemn it strongly — is that I think they could've and should've directed their attacks at Israeli military targets.

[Pattern-chaser]

Another reason is that my government does nothing about our homeless, healthcare, the housing crisis, inflation, etc. but they send hundreds of billions to Israel and Israel uses some of the money to buy our politicians to keep the money coming.

Yes, Biden is one of the biggest beneficiaries from American money, funnelled back to American politicians. He's had about $6 million, I believe. Did it go into his professional political funding, or into his own pocket, I wonder?

[Pattern-chaser]

What happened is that anti-Semitism has gone berserk. I have not seen anything like it in my lifetime. University campuses everywhere chanting "intafada" (destruction of Israel), from "the river to the sea" (removal of Israel) and "death to Israel".

Incidents of that kind seem few and far between. There are extremists involved here, and they are as wrong and as undesirable as all extremists are. And the campus protests are not all one-sided.

Pro-Israeli attack at UCLA

At the UCLA campus in Los Angeles on April 30, 2024, a pro-Israel group supported by several far-right activists, attacked the pro-Palestinian encampment, attempting to breach the barricades surrounding the encampment. The attackers, reported to have come from outside of campus, carried Israeli flags and assaulted students with sticks, stones, poles, metal fencing, and pepper spray. They played loud audio of a child crying, threw wood and a metal barrier into the camp, and shot fireworks into the encampment. The counter-protesters called for a "Second Nakba", referring to the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948.

I can find no evidence of the extreme bias that you claim, and little of the sort of extremist calls for the extermination of Jews — 𝕳𝖔𝖑𝖔𝖈𝖆𝖚𝖘𝖙! — that you decry. The vast majority of the protests, and the protestors, want peace in the Middle East, and an end to genocide. Israeli genocide.

What you describe as widespread is actually quite hard to find. I don't doubt the Jewish Chronicle has examples, but they are hardly unbiased themselves...